The Colder Water
by Quillslinger
Summary: The devil is in the details. Shisui. Itachi. A sorta love story. Novella.
1. Part I

**Title: **The Colder Water (1/?)

**Series:** Naruto

**Pairing:** Shisui/Itachi

**Summary:** The devil is in the details. Shisui. Itachi. A sorta love story.

**Disclaimer:** Naruto is the property of Kishimoto Masashi.

**Important:** I'm using the same characterization and background I created for Shisui in _Who Died and Made You Lolita?_ which I know you may not have read. It's better this way, really, because if you consider this fic a sequel to that story, you're in for some serious mood whiplash. Also, _Lolita _was gen! Gen, I tell you! This is... not. Come on, look at that winner of a summary, you know you want to read this and witness me lose what little sanity I had left.

At this point, I think it has clearly been established that knowing something is a terrible idea has never stopped me before orz

* * *

**The Colder Water**

**Part I**

-x-

_And so it is  
The shorter story  
No love, no glory_

-x-

When Shisui returned from a week-long mission and found Itachi's little brother drowning in the Nakano River, all he could think was, "What the fuck?"

By the time the thought parsed, he was already halfway across the bank. He had just enough sense to drop his armor and gear by the edge of the water before diving in, cutting through the waves in quick free strokes as the rough current jostled his body, buffering progress. He reached Sasuke just as the boy's head went under, and hauled him up to the surface with Sasuke's back pressed flat against his chest.

"Hey," Shisui shouted, hooking one arm tightly over Sasuke's torso to hold him up. "Are you okay?"

Sasuke answered with a series of sputtering coughs. Good enough.

"Relax, and don't struggle," Shisui ordered, and began sidestroking back to shore.

They collapsed on the river bank, struggling for breath, and while Sasuke choked up what seemed like a minor lake, Shisui sat back and pondered the percentages and possibilities of mental illnesses running in the extended family. To his best knowledge, no one in his clan had been diagnosed with clinical depression. Regrettably, his ANBU training had not prepared him for the delicate task of talking down suicidal cases, but since he was an unparalleled genius it shouldn't be difficult to improvise something.

He cleared his throat, and pasted a suitably somber expression onto his face. "How could you do this to your family?" Guilt-tripping: the method of champions. "You still have so much to live for."

"I wasn't trying to kill myself, _stupid_," Sasuke yelled indignantly. If the kid was already this mouthy at the age of eight(-ish), Shisui wondered if it would have been better for the good of the world just to let him drown.

"Were you reenacting a one-man version of _The Kappa and the Shy Maiden_, then?" he asked facetiously. "Because I know a guy who could give you a killer deal on stage makeup."

"I was swimming," Sasuke said mulishly, eyes sliding somewhere to the left. Shisui could hear his inner dumbass alarms go off.

"In the Nakano? Near the river mouth, where the currents are strongest? What, did you miss that day of preschool when they taught water safety or something?"

"No," Sasuke snapped. "I started out upstream, but then I got swept down here, and I couldn't get back to shore." He scowled. "Stupid river."

Shisui quickly connected the dots. He looked down at the spiky dark head with pity. "You're not a very good swimmer, are you?"

In a refreshing display of candor, Sasuke dropped his head and mumbled a barely audible, "No." Then he looked up, and added emphatically, "I'm trying to get better, though. Nii-san promised to help me practice and everything."

"Well, where the hell is _nii-san _then?" Shisui demanded. "Is he supervising you via astral projection?"

"He couldn't make it," Sasuke said quietly. "Something came up."

"Geez," Shisui muttered, "I bet he's going to feel like a real winner knowing his baby brother nearly drowned while he was off doing his usual hyper-workaholic thing."

"You can't tell nii-san about this," Sasuke said, wide-eyed and panicky. "You can't tell him I went swimming by myself."

"Why?" Shisui asked sarcastically. "Are you planning on doing it again?"

"He's going to think I'm stupid if he finds out," Sasuke said. He sounded completely demoralized. "He'll think I can't take care of myself when he's not around."

Shisui was on the point of saying something like, "Nothing wrong with a little honesty," but didn't, since ultimately he had no real desire to see the kid cry. He glanced up and down the river bank, saw that there were no potential witnesses around, and heaved a longsuffering sigh before saying, "You really want to get better at swimming?"

Sasuke nodded at him morosely. It was almost painful to watch. If some direly needed testosterone didn't get injected into this moment, and _soon_, Shisui feared he would pass out from deprivation.

"Then come on," he said, rising to his feet. "The best place to practice is just inside the bend behind that hill over there."

"I didn't ask for your help," Sasuke said, but didn't sound sure. He was clearly weighing the pros and cons of the enterprise to himself.

"Suit yourself," Shisui said lightly. "Offer's still on the table—but not for long. I'm a busy, busy man." He was actually supposed to report to the Hokage's office for a debriefing hours ago, but was finding ways to delay it as long as possible. "I just thought it'd be too sad if someone isn't able to enjoy a _nice, cool_ swim on this _bright, hot _summer day due to their crushing ineptitude, that's all."

Sasuke gave him a look that could have killed a deer at twenty yards, but Shisui could tell he had already caved. Like taking candy from a baby.

-x-

On the plus side, Shisui reasoned with upbeat resignation, Sasuke definitely wouldn't need to eat supper tonight, provided he didn't contract any terrible and deadly water-borne pathogens from all the delicious river water he had consumed in the last hour.

Their progress ranged somewhere in the poor-to-mediocre spectrum. To Sasuke's credit, he had jumped right back into the water without any sign of trauma-induced hydrophobia. They had breezed through survival floating, but hit a roadblock when it became evident that Sasuke was flatly incapable of coordinating his arms and legs to facilitate stroking and kicking simultaneously. After the third kick he took to the ribs, Shisui decided that they needed a break, and so they were once again sacked out side by side on the river bank, watching puffy clusters of cloud crawl across the blue, blue August sky.

"I'm getting better already, aren't I?" Sasuke chirped enthusiastically, and because Shisui didn't have the heart to inform him otherwise, he murmured noncommittally, and went back to studying the cumulus formations hanging right over his head. Heh. Poofy.

"It's probably a good sign that you can keep your head out of the water now," he said, striving for positive reinforcement. "For the most part, anyway." They'd been focusing on the breaststroke, which Shisui had previously considered impossible to fuck up, but children were such joyful bundles of surprise.

Sasuke beamed. It was a shame he had such a rotten personality, Shisui reflected, because the kid could be pretty cute, in a poster-child-for-cancer-research kind of way.

"Now if you just spent more time—" he began, but was cut off by Sasuke's excited cry: "Nii-san!"

He leaped up and sped up the slope of the bank like a chased gazelle. Shisui craned his neck around just in time to see Sasuke fling himself into his brother's arms in a reunion scene suspiciously reminiscent of sappy endings in certain low-quality theatrical productions of which Shisui absolutely had no knowledge.

He watched with awestruck fascination as Itachi set his brother back down on the ground, where Sasuke immediately proceeded to wrap his arms around his brother's neck again and—God—was he actually _whispering_ into Itachi's ear?

The amount of touchy-feely-ness on this river bank was suddenly approaching alert levels. It gave Shisui the heebie-jeebies. He had to chalk this up to his being a) an only child, b) the only child of an absentee father, and c) such an exemplary specimen of virile manhood that any display of male physical affection _he_ might find himself engaging in must be accompanied by a lot of exaggerated back-thumping and a good five inches of space separating the participants' hips.

Shisui didn't have a brother to speak of, but if he _did_, he wouldn't be embracing him like _that_, dude.

In fact, Itachi was probably the closest thing to a sibling that he had—a fact that was as depressing as it was perplexing—and Shisui had definitely never hugged him. This brought on a whole new tangent of thought wherein he tried to count the number of people he had hugged in his lifetime. The fact that Itachi was his longest-slash-closest friend, and yet Shisui had hugged other people but not him spoke volumes about the both of them, and all of sudden, Shisui felt maybe he was not okay with that.

Then again, the entire venture was doomed to end in tragedy anyway. He could already imagine how it would go. The outcome was limited to one of the following:

1. Itachi would kick his ass.

2. Shisui would develop a myocardial infarction brought on by humiliation.

3. Itachi would do nothing, would stand there like a fucking plank of wood while Shisui attempted to wrap his arms around his shoulders and give him halfhearted pats on the back. This would go on for all of three dead silent minutes, at which point Itachi would kick his ass and/or Shisui would develop a myocardial infarction brought on by humiliation.

Shaking his head, Shisui pulled himself to his feet and began to collect his belongings, scattered all over the grassy bank. The black tank-top he'd spread out to dry was still slightly damp, but serviceable. He strapped his breastplate back on, but didn't bother with the armguards. There was admittedly a possibility that he could be attacked en route to the Hokage's office, but that possibility was very slim. Lastly, he dragged a hand through his wet hair: the coarse strands stuck up like pine-needles.

All in all, he probably looked like a bedraggled sewer-rat, which guaranteed to piss off Mamiya the Old Bag when he went in for his debriefing, so all was right with the world.

When he looked up, Itachi and Sasuke had made their way down to the water-edge—there was _hand-holding _involved, to his unending horror. Itachi met his eyes with his usual impassive gaze. Shisui cocked his head, flashed his best smile.

"Hey," he greeted. "Long time no see."

The corner of Itachi's mouth lifted, and he was on the point of saying something when Sasuke tugged on his hand. The kid seriously had some attention-seeking issues—he had all the twitchiness of an exceptionally hyperactive puppy with twice the neediness. "Nii-san, guess what?" he said, rash and bright-eyed. "I learned how to do the breaststroke."

Itachi, who despite prodigy status clearly couldn't tell when his brother was lying through his teeth, leaned down and brushed wet bangs out of Sasuke's face. "That's very good. We should work on it together some other time." He flattened his palm against Sasuke's head. "Isn't it time for you to go home?"

"Oh yeah," Sasuke said, and frantically grabbed for his shirt, pulling it roughly over his head. "Bye, nii-san," he shouted, waving, "Bye, Shisui, thanks for the lesson," and shot off before Shisui could give him a lecture about proper use of honorifics.

-x-

It was weird to watch Itachi, whose entire demeanor screamed DON'T TOUCH, interact so easily with his brother, when Shisui had seen people in the street purposely veer out of his way to avoid contact, keeping a respectful, even _fearful_ distance. Even though Shisui himself was adamantly opposed to PDA, he couldn't help feeling a little of jealous of Sasuke. He was the sole exception to the rule, whereas Shisui, who had in fact known Itachi _longer_, had only been able to work himself up to clapping his friend's shoulders and, on particularly adventurous days, slapping him lightly on the back of the head.

The only exception was when either of them were injured on a mission (a rare occurrence, but known to happen), but he wasn't desperate enough to resort to _self-harm_ just to get some attention, and being jealous of an eight-year-old was just _scraping the barrel_. He was too cool for that.

"I was just over at the Hokage's office," Itachi said, finally giving Shisui his full, undivided attention. "Mamiya-san told me you were supposed to go in for debriefing three hours ago."

"Was I?" Shisui said innocently. "Must've slipped my mind."

"I'm heading that way again," Itachi went on, rolling over Shisui with his usual aplomb. "Walk with me."

Shisui held his hand up in surrender, and gathered up the rest of his gear. He settled into step beside Itachi, and tried to think of something interesting/impressive to say, but what he actually said was, "So, it's been awhile, huh?"

"Yes, it has," Itachi replied. "How long were you away this time?"

Shisui did some mental calculations. "Well, this was a week, but before that there was that two-month mission in the next county—oh, and I went on reconnaissance in Grass for a week and a half before that, so…" He jerked his head up in surprise. "Wow. That means I haven't seen you in almost three months."

There had once been a time when Shisui and Itachi had spent nearly every single day in each other's company. But that was when they had been partners, and ever since they had split up into specialized divisions at the end of last year—Shisui into Field Unit, Itachi into Intelligence—their lives had suddenly, and for the first time ever, diverted from their formerly parallel paths.

The thought stirred up a curl of guilt. Shisui knew perfectly well his mission load wasn't that intensive for no reason, but then again, it wasn't as if Itachi was making much of an effort either. On the few occasions he had been home in-between missions, he had made a point to seek out his friend, only to learn that Itachi had been wrapped up in assignments of his own. He supposed he should just accept it. This was probably that growing up thing people kept making noises about.

"I heard about your mission," Itachi said serenely. "Another assassination?"

For no reason, Shisui felt a certain heaviness settle into the pit of his stomach. "What? It's in the job description."

"But it's not all that this job entails," Itachi said. His tone was mild, flatly nonjudgmental, but it still set Shisui on edge.

"Well, I'm good at it," he said defensively, and began to parrot the Sandaime in pitch-perfect mimicry, "Proper resource-management is all about finding a niche for every skill set, isn't that right?"

In return, Itachi gave him a long, searching look, eyes half-hidden under dark lashes. "Do you think it wise, making so many enemies, Shisui?"

Shisui bit back a snarl. Perhaps spending time apart had caused him to forget that Itachi had a penchant for asking oblique questions that seemed more about making you feel small rather than requesting information. Added to his uneasiness, there was now a twinge of frustration.

He and Itachi did not have long heartfelt conversations about hopes and worries and dreams of a white picket fence. Some time ago, Shisui had decided that, if Itachi had a heart at all, it'd be so extensively and rigorously compartmentalized that any aspiring navigator would quickly find himself lost in an endless maze. Shisui could see himself wandering through those labyrinthine corridors, turning useless knobs and falling through trapdoors. At best, he might be able to find the room called "Sasuke", and maybe the one called "Hair Care For The Shinobi On The Go", but as for the rest he was completely fucked.

He sure as hell wouldn't know how to find his way to the "Shisui" room.

So he said, "They're not _my_ enemies," spelling out the words with over-the-top earnestness just be to an asshole. "They're the Daimyo's enemies, and seeing as he's the one writing our paychecks, I don't think we're in any positions to be picky about our assignments."

"There's always a choice," Itachi said quietly. It was one of those cryptic but entirely meaningless remarks that Shisui found so irritating. He pretended not to have heard.

"Besides," he continued, only _very_ slightly reproachful, "it's not like they'll ever be able to trace it back to me." He cleared his throat, and affected a dramatic voice:

"Headline news: Murder-Suicide by The Lake! Linghu Chong, proud leader of the dreaded Nine Swords Sect, was seen stabbing wife of ten years Liu Zhenghua to death in the presence of five eyewitnesses, before turning the blade on himself. In a letter found on his desk, Linghu confessed to having lost all will to live after discovering his wife's salacious affair with his second-in-command, who was later found strangled to death in his personal chamber. The authority has concluded that no foul play is suspected."

He stopped for breath, and sneered. "Best suicide note I've written yet. Wanna hear it?"

"No, thank you," Itachi said curtly. He sounded tense, for no reason Shisui could discern. "I understand that you have high confidence in your preferred method, Shisui, but have a care. Eventually, someone is bound to catch on to that technique."

Shisui seriously doubted that was the case, but he didn't really want to start an argument he would inevitably lose. "You know," he said, forcing a smile, "if you're worried about me, you can just say so."

The hedge could go either way. Today, it went right. The set of Itachi's jaw eased itself of tension, and his lips rearranged themselves into some semblance of a smile. Shisui felt rather gratified.

"But enough about me," he said, smiling in a much more natural way. "Tell me what you've been up to."

Itachi shrugged. "Just a standard investigation. I've been working in close collaboration with the clan's Military Police Corps."

Shisui could feel himself glaze over. The politics of intelligence work bored him stupid. "That sounds like a world of fun," he commented, barely suppressing a yawn. "Hey, is it just me or did you grow taller in the last three months?"

"I'm so glad you noticed," Itachi replied, in a voice just this side of tart, and it caught Shisui by such surprise that he burst out into laughter. He slung his arm around Itachi's shoulder, unthinking, and only became aware of it when he realized his gesture hadn't been rebuffed. He grinned to himself, absently palming the warm curve of a narrow shoulder.

Not quite a hug, but it would do for now. After all, this relationship was and had always been a work in progress.

-x-

"You're late," Mamiya said by way of greeting the moment Shisui stepped into the room. "Didn't I tell you the last time that your pay would be docked if you didn't start being more punctual?"

"Oh no," Shisui answered, rolling his eyes. "That would _totally_ destroy my gold-chip retirement plan. Whatever should I do?"

Mamiya glared at him, and held out her wrinkly hand for the post-mission report, which Shisui realized belatedly had been kept in his back-pocket the entire time and was therefore drenched into utter illegibility. He gave the Hokage's assistant a sheepish smile, which did nothing to lessen the scorn etched into every line of her ancient face.

"So I see you're still doing your best to avoid having to be home," Mamiya said testily, jotting something undoubtedly scathing down in his mission log.

"What does that mean?" Shisui asked, though he had a sinking feeling he knew where this was going, partially because this was the second fucking time today that someone would be bringing it up.

The old bag leveled him with a look. "Shisui," she said, grinding out the syllables in his name, and sure enough, continued with, "According to your record, you haven't been in Konoha for more than three days at a time since you were reassigned to Field Unit." She paused, and went on in a meaningful voice, "I also can't help but think the _timing_ of it all is a little suspect."

Shisui scowled. It had been over nine months already, and he wished people would just let it go. He himself had long moved on. Why was that not patently obvious?

To put in bluntly, in late November of last year, Shisui's father had been found gutted like a fish just outside the village's border where he had presumably been on his way back to Konoha after his annual pilgrimage. His eyes had been gouged out and removed, and the autopsy revealed that he had put up a great deal of struggle before his death. This evidence indicated that, even though the scene had resembled a rogue-nin attack, the murderers were most likely enemies of Konoha who had targeted an Uchiha traveling alone for the purpose of stealing the secrets of the Sharingan.

Shisui had been away on a mission at the time, and upon returning, had been expressly forbidden to participate in the follow-up investigation by both the Hokage and the Uchiha's Military Police—as if he'd had any intention of the kind. In his heart, he had always known on some dreadful level this would happen someday. An even more horrible part of him had also thought that, really, his dad had brought it on himself. If he'd only been more careful, if he hadn't been so stubborn, hadn't ostracized himself from the clan and their protection…

This thought, more than anything, had brought home to him the reminder that the world had just become that much more dangerous to be Uchiha Shisui.

"You opted to be a field agent even though your partner went into Intelligence," Mamiya was saying, eyes grim. "You made the decision a month after the funeral."

The funeral had been small and quiet—the clan had offered to take on the responsibilities, but Shisui had politely declined. For one thing, his father would not have approved, and for another, he hadn't been certain Fugaku wouldn't have started insulting his dad in the middle of delivering the eulogy. He had been grateful, however, to see a significant number of clansmen showing up to give their respect. Despite his dad's insistence on cutting all ties with the family, it was clear he hadn't been forgotten.

But all throughout the ceremony, all he had been able to think was: _At least you can be with her now. I hope that makes you happy. I'm sorry I never could._

"Is there a point to all this?" Shisui found himself snapping, fists clenched at his sides. "If not, I'd like to get on with my debriefing already. I'm sure you're very busy and all. There must be some _other_ father who died this week for you to fuss about." For all he knew, this was true.

Mamiya gave him a stinging look of baleful distaste, before shaking her head and waving him on through.

-x-

The minute Shisui walked through the door that led into the Hokage's personal office, he immediately choked on the noxious fumes of tobacco smoke. The quite-spacious room had the look of a dingy opium den. Unless the Sandaime was harboring plans to join his predecessors six feet under, Shisui thought, some kind of intervention should be swiftly effected.

Through the toxic haze, he heard Sarutobi's deep voice, saying, "I'm glad you've finally decided to show up, Shisui. Have a seat."

Shisui blinked—his eyes were beginning to water—and saw that a chair had been placed in the middle of the room, directly beneath the Hokage's raised desk. "Uh," he said. "Is this going to be a long session?"

"That depends," Sarutobi answered, emerging from the fog, "on how willing you are to be cooperative."

Shisui knitted his brows together. "I thought I was here to be debriefed."

"There's no need," said the Hokage. He continued to puff on his pipe in a way that made even Shisui worry about the likelihood of developing cancer. "I've already heard all about it from the other ANBU on your squad. Not everyone feels the inclination to be fashionably late, you know."

Shisui sank a little further into his seat. He realized suddenly the purpose of the chair—it increased the height difference between the person sitting in it and the Hokage's desk, which probably came in handy when Sarutobi felt the need to haul a subordinate over the coals. Like he was doing right now.

"Okay," Shisui prevaricated, steeling himself for the reaming he knew would inevitably follow. "But at least the mission was a success, right?"

For some unknown reason, Sarutobi's lips threaded into a tight line. "Yes," he said brusquely. "The mission was a success. A flawless job, without a single loose end. Just like the five assassinations you participated in before that."

Shisui's jaw dropped in sudden insight. "Is this a _psych evaluation_?" He looked around frantically, half-expecting to see men in white coats melting out of the wall. "Are you actually worried that your ninja who had been specifically trained to be good at killing people was becoming _too_ good at killing people?"

Sarutobi made a noise of faint exasperation, and fixed Shisui with a level, no-nonsense stare. "I worry about nothing of the sort," he said sternly. "However, I did call you here today to discuss a matter that could be considered—relevant."

A pregnant pause descended onto the room. For lack of something to focus on, Shisui found himself twiddling with the edge of the wooden mask in his hands. Why did he choose the weasel design again?

"I would be lying," Sarutobi said at last, "if I said that your performance in the ANBU has been anything but outstanding from the start." Before the self-satisfied smirk had properly crawled onto Shisui's face, he went on seriously, "However, I can't help but notice that, since you became an agent in our Field Unit, your rate of success in killing missions has spiked significantly—and that you seem to have developed a selective preference for these kinds of assignment."

For a moment, Shisui was tempted to repeat that line about resource management, but one look at the Hokage's face informed him that, for once, he would do well to resist the siren call of his Very Bad Ideas.

"I have spoken to the shinobi who accompanied you on these missions," said Sarutobi. "And every single one of them has confirmed that the reason for your increased proficiency has much to do with your, how should I put this, _overreliance_ on a certain technique."

Shisui suddenly felt like a pitcher of ice had been poured down the back of his shirt. In his head, he heard a quiet voice, saying, _"Eventually, someone is bound to catch on to that technique."_

"You know what I'm talking about," Sarutobi said gravely. "That genjutsu, said to be the most powerful in the five nations." He lowered his voice significantly. "Your Doryoku."

An unflagging effort. The last great exertion. The invincible technique.

"Your Sharingan were fully formed before you were inducted into the ANBU," the Hokage stated coldly. "And you've always excelled at genjutsu. However, you did not start using that particular jutsu until you entered Field Unit. Reason dictates that you could have only developed it within the last year."

Shisui's lips curved into a bitter sneer. "You know what they say, sir. Necessity is the mother of invention."

-x-

When Shisui's dad had died, he had quit the ANBU for two weeks. He had packed enough supplies to last a month, and traveled into the mountains outside Konoha, already capped with snow in early December. There, he'd found a cave, and had barricaded himself inside.

Thirteen days later, he had stumbled out, shaking, exhausted, blood pouring from his mouth and so depleted of chakra he'd had to be hospitalized for a week afterward. But in spite of the dry-heaving, the excruciating pain, the temporary loss of vision due to excessive use of the Sharingan, the only thing Shisui could remember was the vicious, burning taste of victory in his mouth as he'd savored the sensation of a blinding, agonizing power raging behind his eyes, emptying his head of fear and doubt.

In the fifteen years preceding his father's death, Shisui had perfected every deadly art the human body could conceivably master, pushing his limits further and further until he'd thought himself untouchable, that he'd acquired more power than any one man could ever need in a lifetime. But what he hadn't factored into the equation was the fact that bodies were fallible.

Bodies could be broken, could be destroyed, could be exposed and dismantled and laid bloody and bare for all to observe.

The last frontier to conquer was the human mind.

His father might have been a family disgrace—or whatever passed for their fucking stupid notion of disgrace—but once upon a time, he had been one of the best, one of the elite, the _invincible_, and Shisui knew for a fact that underneath the veneer of disillusioned eccentricity his dad had acquired to fend off his debilitating grief, that power had still been there, rippling beneath the skin like a hidden whirlpool.

The fact that it still hadn't been enough to save his life just proved that there was no such thing as enough power, let alone too much.

And if there was some kind of line he would be crossing, Shisui had thought, lying awake at night listening to the wind and the howling of hungry wolves beyond the mouth of the cave, he would just have to learn to live with it, find a place for it inside his heart, next to his anger and his huge, swallowing grief.

It was nothing big, really. He'd just grown sick and tired of losing, of always going down.

-x-

Something flicked inside him, like a light switch, and when Shisui looked up again, he saw that the Hokage's face was fixed in a deep frown. It emphasized every wrinkle-line, every crowfoot, every thumbprint time had left on his wizened face, and Shisui found himself thinking, "_Someone with as much knowledge as you should understand my decision."_

Instead, he said, "If you want me to explain the inner-workings of my technique, sir, I'm afraid I can't comply. It's an Uchiha family secret."

Something passed darkly through Sarutobi's brown eyes. "Is it really?" he asked, lifting the pipe slowly from between his lips. "So I gather your relationship with the Uchiha Clan has improved."

"What do you mean by that?" Shisui said, frowning.

Sarutobi continued to gaze at him with that dark, inscrutable expression. "You did not go to their last New Year Banquet."

"I _never_ go to the New Year Banquet!"

"Why not?" pressed the Hokage. "As I recall, the ban was lifted for your family a few years back."

_What family_, he thought derisively. "They've sent an invitation every year since I was ten. So what? That's not the point."

Sarutobi gave him a blank look. "Then what is the point?"

Shisui felt an overwhelming desire to drag his hand over his face. He settled for a low sigh, and said, in the least whiny voice he could manage, "The Head of the clan doesn't like me. Which is fine, I'm not very fond of him either, but it does make formal social gatherings a bit… awkward."

The severe look on the Hokage's face softened fractionally. "I understand how you feel."

_No, you don't_, Shisui thought furiously, the faint pity in Sarutobi's voice pushing his anger to its boiling point. "Come on, Hokage-sama," he snapped, leaping to his feet. "Let's cut straight to the part where we stop pretending this conversation is somehow about me."

Sarutobi's gaze remained even. "How do you mean?"

Shisui felt trapped: cornered, for no reason he could understand. Something was being demanded of him, but he had no idea what. "I'm not trying to estrange myself from the clan. Sure, Fugaku hates my guts, but as for the rest of them—I'm no Mr. Popular but they treat me alright."

Why wouldn't they, a part of him thought snidely, considering all the pretty shiny associations he kept reaping for them, like "The Mirage" and "Uchiha Shisui, Most Feared Shinobi in Three Nations" and "The Uchiha's Phantom Genjutsu Master, Scourge of the Underworld".

"I don't hate them," he continued. It was pretty hard to hate a hundred odd people, most of whom had done nothing to you. "Not like my dad did, and I don't… I don't blame them for his death, either."

"Then," Sarutobi said with a piercing gaze, "who _do_ you blame?"

Shisui opened his mouth, then closed it again. "_No one_," he bit out, glaring at his feet.

There was a long silence, bleak with tension and misery. It figured that the moment you thought you were in the clear, life would merrily dig up a fresh circle of hell to toss you in.

"I'm not trying to pry into your personal business, Shisui," the Hokage said finally. "In fact, I find it comforting to know that you've been spending a lot of time abroad. Sometimes, distance is what one needs to set one's mind straight—and to avoid the reach of harmful influences."

Sarutobi stopped speaking abruptly, and began shuffling a sheaf of paper on his desk. Then he looked down at Shisui, and said, in an almost casual tone, "Have you spoken much to Itachi since your partnership was dissolved? How do you think he has been faring in his new position?"

"Why are you asking _me_?" Shisui asked, furrowing his eyebrows. "Like you said, I've been away. You've probably seen more of him than I have in the past few months."

"I suppose that's true," Sarutobi nodded. "And why do you think that is?"

"Well, _clearly_ it must be because I've been out of the village working off my grief by mind-controlling people into killing themselves," he retorted, slipping into the easy comfort being a belligerent brat.

It failed to rile Sarutobi. "Shisui," the Hokage continued, in a voice pitched low. "Would you say that you consider Itachi a close friend?"

When Shisui's dad had died, Itachi had taken a two-week leave from the ANBU, and followed him into the mountains. He had brought his own supplies, and set up camp outside Shisui's cave, pitching his soldier's tent some thirty yards away. They hadn't spoken one word to each other since the funeral, and during the entirety of those two weeks, Shisui had seen neither hide nor hair of Itachi, even on the few occasions he'd made himself come out of the cave for a draught of badly needed fresh air.

Still, he knew Itachi had never left, and he had been the only one present when Shisui had staggered out of the cave on the thirteenth day and dropped into a dead collapse in the thickening snow. His had been the first face Shisui had seen upon returning to the world of the living, and though he hadn't been able to remain conscious for long, in that brief, wavering moment, he had looked up into a grey sky flaking with snow, and seen the closest thing to a concerned expression that Itachi had ever been able to manage.

That image had stayed with him, filed away inside the hollow of his chest, right next to his father's scar-roughened hands and his mother's beautiful smile, gleaned from a yellowed photograph.

Slowly, Shisui shook himself out of his reverie. "Yeah," he said blurrily, working around the sudden lump in his throat. "I would say that."

For a long moment, Sarutobi just looked at him. Then, he sighed softly, and said, "That's all for today. You are dismissed."

"When I can have my next assignment?" Shisui asked eagerly.

"Come back in a week. For the time being, you're on leave."

"But I don't want to go on leave!"

"You don't have a choice," the Hokage told him breezily. "You've exceeded the maximum number of hours allotted for consecutive service. According to regulations, you have to take time off before we can send you out again."

Shisui made an indignant face. "There's no such thing!"

"There is now," Sarutobi said flatly. "Overworked shinobi pose a danger to the success of the mission, and to their comrades. Consider this a forced furlough."

He paused, and gave Shisui a long look, solemn but not unkind. "If I were you, Shisui, I would take this time to take stock of my situation and think about what I might want to do next with my life. You can't use work as an excuse to put it off forever. Sooner or later, you're going to have to make a decision."

Shisui thought he also knew a number of things _he_ would do if he were the Sandaime, but figured vocalizing them would be a sure ticket to the afterlife. Glumly, he stuck his hands into his pockets, and got ready to leave.

"When are you taking the Jounin Exam?" Sarutobi asked suddenly.

"End of September," Shisui promptly replied. "Right before my sixteenth birthday."

Sarutobi raised one questioning brow. "And how do feel about it?"

"I don't _feel_ anything about it, _sir_," Shisui said, wrinkling his nose in disgust. "It's just something you do."

"I suppose, in your place, I would be confident, too," said the Hokage with a charitable smile. "See you in a week," he added. "And _don't_ come back before then."

-x-

**End of Part I

* * *

**

**Notes: **For some reason, listening to Tori Amos always makes me want to write Itachi. No exception.


	2. Part II

**Title: **The Colder Water (2/?)

**Series:** Naruto

**Pairing:** Shisui/Itachi

**Summary:** The devil is in the details. Shisui. Itachi. A sorta love story.

**Disclaimer:** Naruto is the property of Kishimoto Masashi. I only own the things I blatantly and shamelessly made up. And yes, this is still completely insane.

* * *

**The Colder Water**

**Part II**

-x-

_I keep my secrets well  
Move on and never tell  
Someday they'll show_

_You raised me to be cruel  
You raised me like a bruise  
I'm bleeding still_

-x-

Shisui stomped out of the Hokage's office with a storm cloud over his head. He made an angry beeline for Mamiya's desk.

"Thanks a lot for the heads-up," he said accusingly. "I could have used the warning that I was gonna be receiving the third degree back in there."

The old bag gave him a look that conveyed precisely how little she cared, and shoved a sheet of paper into his hand. "Your release agreement. Fill that out and hand it back to me before you leave."

Shisui raised an eyebrow. "I didn't know we had to fill out a form to take time off."

"If you'd ever taken time off, you might know," Mamiya said crabbily. "Now hurry up. We have guests, and I don't have time to deal with you."

"Guests?"

Mamiya's lips thinned into an invisible line, minute tension coming to rest between her eyebrows. She made a slight motion with her head toward the exit. Shisui leaned back to peer into the hallway, and saw the three men in dark uniform standing in a close huddle just beyond the door. Immediately, he scowled.

If it wasn't Konoha's dirty little secret. Members of Root were a bunch of pallid, moon-faced, emotionally-defunct cretins who liked to think they were better than regular ANBU, but were totally, totally wrong, and as far as Shisui was concerned, those were their only real defining traits.

"I didn't know those freakazoids could go outside in the daylight," he said, without bothering to lower his voice. "You'd think they would, like, shrivel up and burn or something. What are they doing here?"

"What do you think?" Mamiya snapped, but not meanly, because deep down Shisui knew she agreed with him. "They're here as Danzou-sama's escorts."

"Really?" Shisui asked excitedly. "King Freakazoid is here?" He twisted his head around dramatically, as though the man in question might pop out from a shadowed corner like some kind of house ghoul—in fact, even the ghouls would probably be offended by that comparison.

"He has some business to discuss with the Hokage," Mamiya said, beetle-browed. "And if you know what's good for you, you'll stop sticking your nose where it doesn't belong."

Shisui didn't stick his tongue out at her, but it was very hard.

He made a haphazard job of filling out the release statement, and marched out the door, making sure to give the trio of Root shinobi the dirtiest look in his very vast repertoire as he passed. This filled him with a sweet sense of gratification, but then he turned a corner and that sense of gratification disappeared.

At the end of the corridor, two people were engaged in what appeared to be a tense discussion. One of them was Itachi, and the other was—Shisui frowned—the man of the hour himself, resident ghoul and esteemed leader of the Vampiric Assholes Squad.

They both looked up at his approach, and abruptly stopped talking. Shisui noted that Itachi's expression had a strange, almost off-kilter edge to it that he couldn't remember having ever seen before. Danzou, on the other hand, started staring at Shisui like a starved man who'd just found his next meal. He silently vowed to start circulating the rumor that the man was a crazed cannibal at his earliest convenience.

Undeterred, he squared his shoulders and bulldozed forward, willing himself not to turn away from that deeply unsettling one-eyed gaze, which seemed intent on stripping him flesh from bone by sheer intensity.

"Danzou-sama," Shisui said, nodding in blunt greeting once he'd entered speaking distance. Nobody in this village thought he had any manners anyway, so it wasn't like he had a reputation to keep up or anything.

Danzou seemed to consider this for a moment. "You are," he began, speaking in a slow, deliberate manner, "Uchiha Shisui." His voice was raspy, with a gritty quality to it like fingernails on sandpaper.

Shisui blinked. It wasn't that he was surprised Danzou knew his name—for all he knew, the old creeper kept a comprehensive database on every person in Konoha. He just didn't know what to make of Danzou's measuring tone, like he was sizing Shisui up for some as-yet-unknown no-doubt-sinister purpose.

But before he had time to figure it out, Danzou had swept past him, gliding down the corridor toward the Hokage's office without a parting word. Shisui couldn't help staring at his retreating back, equal parts annoyed and disturbed. Only when the man was clear out of sight did he turn back to Itachi, who had been standing in silence observing that odd little scene unfold the entire time.

"Thinking of leaving us for a stint in Root?" Shisui joked. "You know that would be totally, like, trading _down_." On some depressingly realist level, he did have to admit that Itachi would probably fit in quite well with that frigid crowd, which only proved that realism was highly overrated.

Itachi gave him a sideways look, but did not otherwise rise to the bait.

"But seriously, what were you talking about with that creep?"

"Nothing in particular," Itachi said, lifting one shoulder lightly. "Danzou-sama simply had a few words he wished me to relay to Father. It's relevant to the investigation we're currently conducting."

Shisui privately thought that the look on Itachi's face from a minute ago hadn't seemed to indicate 'nothing in particular', but decided to just let it go. Exhaustion was beginning to set in, and he wanted to grab a bite to eat before barreling into bed for what promised to be a sweet long stretch of death-like oblivion. His plant (singular) was probably dead, and all the groceries in his fridge would have gone bad by now, but it wasn't like that was a new development.

"You were in there for a long time," said Itachi. "Did something go wrong with the debriefing?"

"You waited for me?" Shisui asked, brightening. "Nah, nothing's wrong. Well, other than the fact that I got _grounded_ for a week." One day, Shisui swore he would grow out of this puerile stage, but that day was not today. "You'd think such outstanding service would be encouraged and rewarded, but _no_."

"Most people would not consider having time off a punishment," Itachi observed. He did something with his eyelashes that Shisui found highly distracting. "But then again, you are not most people."

Shisui made an aggrieved face. "I don't know why I'm friends with you." He had been asking himself this question for the better part of nine years; at this point, it seemed like a cause more lost than his hair.

"I also have some time off," Itachi went on, entirely oblivious to Shisui's turmoil. "If you don't have anything else to do tomorrow, would you like to join me for a sparring session?"

Shisui tried to do something with his face that didn't involve grinning in a starstruck, highly undignified way. "Yeah, that'd be great!" By the sound of his answer, he'd clearly failed in the attempt.

He was still failing pretty badly on the way home, where he stopped to pick up some takeout chicken for dinner, feeling much more optimistic about his prospects for the week ahead. After all, just because one had the mastery to possess enviable illusionary genius as well as a nigh-invincible trump card didn't mean one should allow one's other (also quite impressive) skills to dull from disuse. He'd need all the nourishment and rest he could get if he wanted to be in top form the following morning.

-x-

But the following morning, Itachi was not there.

Shisui knew something was up the moment he walked onto the training ground, five minutes late instead of the usual ten, and found that he was the first to arrive. Funny how that didn't stop him from lingering around for another hour and a half anyway, straying so worrisomely close to sulky territory that he was subsequently filled with the need to savagely level some portions of the forest to compensate.

But training alone was about as interesting as playing chess with yourself, and so after three hours of vigorous but pointless destruction, he was forced to concede defeat, and went home to clean up, sending off curses to Heaven and Hell about various and sundry prodigies and their newly developed flakiness.

Of course, it took precisely five minutes lounging around doing nothing at home to remind him why he hated, well, lounging around doing nothing at home.

There was a note on Shisui's refrigerator, held in place by a magnet the shape of a shuriken. It was small and slightly ripped along the top where it had been torn carelessly from a blank scroll. All in all, it was very nondescript, and Shisui found himself staring at it every time he went into the kitchen, which wouldn't be much of a problem except that he kept finding himself wandering into the kitchen for increasingly contrived reasons. For all he knew, he'd been doing it in his sleep.

Fountain pens were not designed for the left-handed, Shisui decided, leaning against the counter with the glass of water he'd acquired on his fifth trip into the kitchen. The side of his dad's hand had always been coated with ink; he'd smeared the words even as he'd written them, making a mess of his looping, sprawling handwriting, quick and thoughtless, as thoughtless as the inane notes he'd left for Shisui every time he had disappeared from Konoha without warning.

This particular note talked about getting enough fiber in his diet. It was dated _August 29_. Shisui could no longer recall why he'd kept it tacked to the fridge door for so long, only at this point, it didn't seem right to remove it, even if it did inspire in him borderline OCD behavior.

By his eighth—and most wretched yet—traipse through the kitchen door, Shisui suddenly remembered that he had been put on furlough, not house arrest. He toed on his sandals posthaste, and dashed out the door like it was his last chance at life.

-x-

Konoha in the summertime was just like Konoha in the springtime was just like Konoha in the autumn, and if it weren't for the distinction of snow then it would be exactly the same in the wintertime as well.

Shisui contemplated this latest philosophical finding as he meandered through the crowded streets, the late afternoon sun spilling down generously and coating the village a soft, rich yellow, like the cracked-open heart of a chicken egg. Being out of the house might have been a step in the right direction, but he couldn't really think of anywhere to go. He'd gotten so used to living his life according to regimented schedules, mapped out along the schematic arterial spread of mission plans, that this sudden excess of freedom threw him completely off-center.

This was probably pathetic on some levels, but still no cause for alarm. All that rap Mamiya had spouted about his not being home for more than three days at a time had been so many scurrilous lies, as he distinctly recalled spending three miserable weeks last spring basically living in the ANBU headquarters mainlining soldier pills while following the trail of a serial killer known as the Horoscope Butcher. The Horoscope Butcher had been a vicious knife-happy maniac who had exclusively targeted door-to-door salesmen. He had been tough to nab, mainly because the public had so much sympathy for him.

He was debating the relative merits of returning to the training ground and working himself into a migraine breaking ground on the next evolution of his already highly advanced genjutsu, when someone called his name. An ANBU on the other side of the street was giving him a two-finger salute.

Uchiha Yuudai was Shisui's second cousin once removed or something along those lines: their genealogy had become so convoluted over the decades that it was hard to tell for sure. He was wearing his mask and had his hood up, but Shisui recognized him immediately, probably because Yuudai was the only ANBU who felt the gratuitous and somewhat stupid need to wear the Uchiha symbol on the front of his cloak.

Then again, seeing as Yuu's father was Chief Deputy of the Uchiha Military Police Corps, it wasn't like he had any great need to observe outside conventions or anything.

Nonetheless, a masked friendly face was still a friendly face, and Shisui was unspeakably glad to see him. After exchanging a round of manly fist bumps, Yuudai dropped his hood and pulled up the wooden mask, a choppy grin plastered across his face that told Shisui he was glad to see him too.

"Why didn't you tell me you were back?" he asked, bestowing upon Shisui a couple of satisfyingly brutalizing backslaps. "It's really been awhile, man."

"Just got back yesterday," Shisui answered, smiling in synchronization. "You on an assignment? What's with the full-dress uniform?"

"You know," Yuudai shrugged. "Pulling the nine to five. Not nearly as exciting as being on the field, lucky bastard."

Shisui laughed. There were no official squads in Field Unit, but he and Yuudai along with a couple of others had been grouped together for several missions in the past. Yuudai was new to the ANBU, only just recruited this year, but in a surprising display of sportsmanship not frequently found in the Uchiha Clan did not seem to mind answering to his younger, less well-connected relative. This, Shisui reflected, was probably the reason why he tended to be on better terms with the younger generation of his clansmen.

Yuudai had been a year above Shisui at the Academy—he had, in fact, known Yuu almost as long as he had known Itachi. On a few occasions when Itachi had been driving him more insane than usual, Shisui had even idly wondered why he hadn't picked Yuudai for a best friend instead. Yuu was outgoing and usually good-humored, didn't find casual physical contact to be justified cause for a psychotic rampage or anything, and plus, his father approved of Shisui a hell of a lot more than Itachi's did.

"I'm getting off in a bit," Yuudai was saying, leaning loosely against a power pole. "Want to get the gang together for yakiniku or something? We haven't hung out in forever."

"Sounds great," Shisui returned enthusiastically. The foul mood that had plagued him all day lifted like a dissipating mist. A village wasn't just a place, it was people as well. There was no reason to play at being the odd duck out if it just meant making things difficult for yourself.

At this point, he suddenly noticed that a couple of passersby were giving Yuudai and him strange, shifty looks, which darted away immediately the moment he made eye contact. Shisui was used to people staring at him as he walked down the street—wearing the emblem of his clan tended to have that effect—but there was something unusually scrutinizing about these looks that made him a little uneasy.

"Is it just me," he began, catching yet another villager giving him and his cousin the once-over, "or are people kind of staring at us?"

Yuudai gave him a shrug. "Probably just stunned by the sight of two handsome, talented and all-around-awesome shinobi in one spot," he said cheekily. "Anyway, if you're up for it, let's meet up at Ikazaya's at, say, round six?" He smirked, and added, "I know someone who'll be really happy to see you."

Shisui blinked at him in confusion, but Yuudai just grinned back in his usual shit-eating way and darted off, leaping away quickly and disappearing among the rooftops.

-x-

The day was getting late. Shisui thought vaguely about going to the supermarket to pick up some groceries, since he was going to be home for awhile and should probably make an effort to escape the seductive clutches of the local takeout menus. He was in the process of doing just that when, once again, the sound of his name rang out at him from behind.

"Hey! Shisui!"

"Wow, I'm popular today," he muttered to himself. There was something depressingly familiar about that squeaky voice, and when he pivoted on the spot and saw Sasuke standing outside the gate of the Ninja Academy, it was like he could _hear_ other shoe drop. Obviously, this day had just been too good to be true.

"Shisui-_san_," he said irritably, fighting the instinctive desire to box Sasuke's ear. "God, didn't your parents ever teach you to respect your elders?"

Sasuke, because he was an incorrigible hellspawn, blithely ignored him. "Have you seen my brother around?"

Yet another topic he had no inclination to broach. "No," Shisui replied, with perhaps more surliness than was befitting the situation. "Why are you asking me? Don't you live in the same house?"

Sasuke frowned in consternation. "He was supposed to pick me up after school today so we could go practice taijutsu, but when I woke up this morning, he was gone. Not even Kaasan knew where he went."

Shisui quirked a puzzled brow. Under his breath, he said, "Guess we've both been stood up then."

"What?"

"Nothing." He put his hands in his pockets, tilted his head to one side. "What are you doing skulking out here anyway? School's not out yet—shouldn't you be in class?"

"It's recess," Sasuke said snottily, like this was some kind of self-evident fact. Shisui scowled.

In _his_ Academy days, the very notion of _recess_ would have been laughed off as a preposterous dream. He still remembered, with all the nostalgic fondness of a shell-shocked war veteran recalling his days in the trenches, his first teacher, a certain Saitou-sensei who had gleefully implemented a training program specifically designed to reduce his students' life expectancy to that of terminal ward patients. Shisui knew a guy who knew a guy who had a classmate who had literally expired during one such session, emitting a dying wail identical to the cry of a man being thrown from the top of the Hokage Monument.

"How'd you like yesterday's swimming lesson?" Shisui asked, silently formulating foreboding theories about the direct correlation between failing standards in discipline and rising delinquency in Konoha's children. "Or are you scarred for life? There's nothing wrong with being a landlubber, you know."

Sasuke snorted rudely. "_As if._" Then he smiled sweetly—was the kid bipolar?—and said, "Nii-san promised to take me out for swimming practice again on Sunday. You're welcome to join us."

Shisui's eyebrows made a concerted effort to get intimate with his hairline, but before he could open his mouth to ask Sasuke if he might be having a fever, an even more obnoxious voice had piped up somewhere around his navel, saying, "Did I hear right? Are you saying you can't _swim_, Sasuke?"

Sasuke's face scrunched up into the furious grimace Shisui had formerly only witnessed directed at himself. He twisted around to get all in the new arrival's face. "I never said that. You must be _deaf_."

The other boy—Shisui caught a glimpse of wide blues eyes under an unruly mop of sunny hair—made an equally hideous face, and yelled, "Oh yeah? Well I think your FACE is deaf," in a volume loud enough to perforate eardrums several villages over.

Shisui, having no pressing urge to get involved in their elementary school drama, took the god-given opportunity to slink away unnoticed before Sasuke had time to deliver his next clever retort.

He didn't stop walking until the Academy was well out of sight, and spent several minutes lamenting the fact that the all-scowling all-deadpanning Dynamic Duo otherwise known as Itachi and his brother were evidently going to drive him to total wacko breakdown one of these days. It was now too late to make a grocery run—not unless he had a taste for inferior, down-market produce—and he still had about an hour before it was time to go meet Yuudai and the others at the restaurant. He racked his brain for some kind of activity to while away the time, but no likely prospect presented itself.

Well. There was always the memorial stone.

Shisui didn't usually make a point to go all maudlin about death, spontaneous fits of suicidal genjutsu-invention notwithstanding. After all, dead people were dead, and carrying on about it wasn't going to change anything. Still, it had admittedly been a long time since he'd last visited the cenotaph.

It wasn't about memory, or even the ceremony of it, he thought, flitting through the trees that lined the darkening road. Just paying due respect.

-x-

He was halfway to his destination, taking his usual shortcut through the forest, when his well-honed surveillance senses picked up a familiar presence in the vicinity.

Shisui frowned, and skidded to a halt. While there were myriad reasons Itachi might be found wandering through the woods in the rapidly falling dusk, only a handful of them ranked above suspicion. Strange thoughts banked up inside his head, and before Shisui knew it, he had cut a sharp left and vaulted himself after the faint but still discernible trail, leading deep into the thicket of trees.

After about ten minutes of this, he sensed that his target had stopped moving. Itachi was some distance up ahead—Shisui saw, in the wavering shadow, a clearing in the forest ensconced by tall trees—but he couldn't risk going any further without being detected. Something told him that his friend wouldn't appreciate being tailed in the woods like some kind of criminal.

But there were ways to get around that. Placing his fingers in a well-practiced seal, he swiftly rearranged several strands of chakra, and vanished soundlessly into thin air.

He reappeared in a tree on the outer edge of the lot, camouflaged by brambles of leaves, making sure to mask his presence to the best of his ability. His heart beat a fast tattoo against the wall of his ribcage. He and Itachi had often practiced tracking each other in the past, and while Shisui was fairly confident he could maintain this proximity undetected, he wasn't really keen on betting his neck on a scenario that hadn't been field-tested either.

His train of thought was interrupted by the low susurrus of voices drifting through the branches from within the clearing. Two people were speaking. Shisui strained his ears and utilized every ounce of experience he possessed in the subtle art of eavesdropping, but try as he might, could not make out the words. They sounded like they were encased in bubble wrap, muted and buffered, softly indistinct.

Frustrated, and made reckless as a result, Shisui twisted his body around the tree trunk until he could peek into the clearing. Darkness was falling fast, and what little light managed to filter through the network of leaves did not offer much illumination, but he could faintly make out the outline of Itachi's back. He squinted, trying to catch a glimpse of the as-yet-unknown other currently conversing with his friend, but could not pierce the thick shadow hiding their form from view. For the first time in his life, he wished he'd been born a Hyuuga.

Then, in what he counted as an incredible stroke of luck, the mysterious person stepped forward, directly into a shaft of golden light. The face was still hidden in darkness, but he could see now that it was a man, tall, but not powerfully built. A dark mane of some sort haloed wildly around his head—long hair or some kind of bizarre headgear?

Unfortunately, the improvement in light quality came at the same time that Lion Head decided to—Shisui's eyes widened—lay one hand on Itachi's shoulder, and Shisui had to clamp his hand tightly around his wrist, with force enough to bruise. It was the only way to prevent himself from breaking cover and attacking the stranger, which in retrospect was a true blessing: seeing as Itachi did not at all react to the breach of personal space, he clearly didn't perceive the gesture as a sign of aggression or anything.

His mind couldn't seem to decide if that was better, or actually worse.

When he looked up again, the stranger had vanished, and Itachi was alone in the clearing. He performed a quick check of the immediate surrounding—no one. Shisui fought a quick battle with himself, lost, and mentally counted to ten before dropping out of the tree and calling his friend's name.

"Hey! Itachi!"

At the sound of his voice, Itachi _whipped_ around. Shisui flinched, almost expecting a flurry of kunai to be launched at his head. Perhaps it was the poor light, but he could swear Itachi was wearing the same wild, askew expression he had seen yesterday in the hallway outside the Hokage's office, which added yet another fun installment to a growing series of mysterious conversations that ended in a ruffled Itachi.

A ruffled Itachi was not a good sign.

"Funny running into you here," Shisui began. In no universe could that have counted as a casual greeting, but oh well. "I was just on my way to the memorial stone." He didn't expect Itachi to buy that either, but hey, it wasn't like _Shisui_ was the one with the hidden agenda around here.

"It's very late," Itachi said, eyes almost-narrowed. His voice was enviably calm. "Wouldn't it have been better to wait till morning?"

"Well," Shisui demurred, going for 'guileless'. He was good at 'guileless'. "I was in the neighborhood, and I thought, hey, why not." A pause, and then, "Did I hallucinate it, or did I just see you talking to someone here a minute ago?"

For a moment, it seemed as though he wouldn't be getting an answer. Finally, Itachi's lips unpressed from their tight line, and he said, "You did."

"So." Careful, careful now. "Who was it?"

"Just a traveler," replied Itachi, infuriatingly glib. "He wanted to ask for directions."

_I didn't know you were in the habit of letting random passersby paw all over you_, Shisui thought, and had to bite the inside of his mouth to not say it out loud. Instead, he said, "You sure? He looked kind of suspicious to me. Maybe he could have been a spy or something."

This time, Itachi's eyes really _did_ narrow. "Are you implying that I am incapable of spotting a possible threat to the village?"

Okay. He'd walked straight into that one.

At this point, it was obvious he would be getting no further with this line of inquest. Frustration building, Shisui resorted to the _other_ thing he was very good at—righteous indignation.

"Hey," he said feelingly. "You flaked on me this morning."

Amazingly, that seemed to catch Itachi off-guard. "I was," he began, and—dear god—actually _dropped his eyes._ Shisui's own eyes were so busy bugging out that he barely heard what Itachi said next, which was a low-pitched, "I had some business to take care of."

"Oh really?" Suddenly, acting like a wronged princess was the best idea ever. "I see. You had higher _priorities_. I _totally_ understand. I mean, we haven't seen each other in _forever_, but hey, who am _I_ to interfere with your _important_ business, right?"

Itachi looked as though he might be biting his bottom lip—only the world was not ending so that could not be. Presently, he said, "Actually, it has something to do with you."

"With me?" Shisui asked in unfeigned astonishment. "How so?"

"We have a mission tomorrow," replied Itachi. "Together," he added, after an awkward pause.

Shisui frowned. "Uh, in case you've forgotten, I got put on leave," he pointed out. "Also, we don't work in the same division anymore. Why would they let us partner up again?"

Itachi's mouth curved downward."I may have," he said, in the fits and starts that Shisui should really be freaked out by but was enjoying too much to care. "I may have put in a special request with the Hokage."

Shisui might be having a cerebral aneurysm, he couldn't be sure.

All he knew was that he was suddenly very lightheaded, and might possibly have lapsed into that dopey, endlessly disgraceful smile to which he'd sworn never again to succumb, and that some hideously embarrassing part of him had started bouncing up and down shouting, "You missed me! You really, really missed me!" at the top of its lungs. An unprecedented feeling was bubbling up his throat—_nine years_, he thought fondly, _it took you nine years to get here, you impossible little nut._

When he remembered to blink again, the world was a soft charcoal around him, all the sunlight having melted into a deep purple dusk, the evening creeping gently across the sky. Evening. Dinner. _Meeting_.

"Oh shit," Shisui muttered, ruining the moment completely. "I'm late. I'm so fucking late. I'm supposed to meet Yuu and the others—_crap_."

Itachi's brows knitted together. "Did you have plans?"

"Yeah, yeah, yeah," Shisui said distractedly, making a sweeping gesture that either meant 'sort of' or 'snowball'. "I'm meeting my—a bunch of people for yakiniku, we were supposed to meet up at _six_." He wasn't really that late, but it wouldn't do to dawdle any longer.

He gave Itachi an apologetic look, palming the back of his neck. "So, I guess I'd better be going…"

Itachi was looking at the ground, like he'd suddenly found something highly engrossing at his feet. Shisui felt a pinch of guilt. He briefly considered asking the other boy along, but discarded this idea with a rueful resignation only experience could have instilled. Even back when they had been partners, Shisui had often tried to rope Itachi into participating in various group activities that he'd himself enjoyed, only to be rebuffed with varying degrees of coldness that'd probably given him frostbites. Each attempt had been more doomed than the last, up to a point where he'd decided to stop bothering altogether.

Given this history, it was quite understandable that he nearly herniated something when Itachi looked up at him placidly and said, "Would you mind if I joined you?"

-x-

If Yuudai wondered why Shisui was strolling into Ikazaya's with a manic grin that had to be chipped off with a chisel, he managed not to show it. Rising faithfully from his seat, he walked over and punched Shisui in the shoulder, hard enough to leave a bruise (but probably not).

"Thought you'd never get here," Yuudai said, eyes glinting wickedly. "Kagura's just in the bathroom, she'll be out in a minute. Can we order now? I feel like I can eat a horse."

Shisui glanced around. "Where's Hiyoshi? Isn't it his turn to buy the drinks?"

"Mission," replied Yuudai. "To tell the truth, I'm kinda glad. Didn't he say something about wanting to try karaoke the last time?"

"He's a sick man," Shisui said with a faint shudder.

Yuudai smiled, and looked like he was about to say something, but stopped himself abruptly. Shisui saw the grin derail on his face, and wondered if some grave catastrophe had just erupted behind his back, but when he turned around it was only to the sight of Itachi walking into the restaurant, casting mild, disinterested looks at everything around him. His gaze landed on Shisui, and he slowly made his way over.

Shisui swept a hand in Yuudai's general direction and said, "Itachi, you know Yuu?" which was kind of a stupid question given that Yuudai was Itachi's first cousin, and had probably known him since birth.

Then again, the looks they were currently giving each other didn't seem to evince much cousinly affection.

Before Shisui could address this oddity, a girl with long dark hair had suddenly emerged from behind Yuudai. Her light brown eyes lit up when they fell on him, and she gave Shisui a brilliant smile. "Shisui-kun," she said, voice softening to a hush at the last syllable. "Welcome back. It's been so long."

"Kagura-san!" Shisui said brightly, stepping forward to give her a quick hug. Next to Yuudai, Kagura was probably his favorite sometimes-teammate. She was like the cool big sister he'd never had, and he had never seen anyone in five nations handle a naginata like her.

"Looks like it'll be one more for dinner, Kagura," Yuudai said sharply. "Hope you weren't planning on having a good time or anything tonight."

Shisui jerked around to glare at Yuudai—he hadn't missed that dickish undertone—but was distracted by Kagura's surprised, "Oh!" She had gone slightly pale, and her round eyes were riveted on Itachi, who appeared composed as always, seemingly oblivious to all the strange reactions he had somehow incited.

"Itachi-kun," Kagura said, in a shaky voice. "Yuu's cousin, if I remember correctly. It's… nice to finally meet you."

At this point, Shisui abruptly remembered two things:

1. Itachi was rather well-known in this village; and

2. His fame had nothing to do with personal charms, or any crowd-pleasing credentials.

These were the kind of things he should probably have factored in beforehand, Shisui would later reflect, trapped inside a semi-circle booth with Itachi to his right blocking his escape route, and Yuudai and Kagura on the other side, the former still shooting acidic glares at his cousin over the salt and pepper, and the latter oddly quiet, every now and then darting rueful glances at Shisui.

"So," he began, feeling slightly doomed but too stubborn to give up, "Kagura-san, what have you been up to lately?"

Kagura blinked at him, like she just couldn't understand the words coming out of his mouth. "Oh yes," she said stiltedly after a minute, "I've been—well, I suppose I've been pretty busy. There was that… thing… with the… and I…"

Hearing his usually graceful friend burble like a choking parrot just further confirmed Shisui's suspicion that this evening was going to end in disaster, but before he could fake a deadly illness to get himself out of the hole he'd dug, Yuudai had leaned across the table and said, "If only everyone had your work ethics, Kagura, it would make all of our lives so much easier."

He flashed a nasty smile, and went on, "Too bad some people just can't resist letting their privileged positions go to their overinflated heads, so much that they forget they have _responsibilities_ to tend to."

"The same could be said," Itachi said coldly, "of certain others who do not know how to mind their own stations, nor understand the concept of discretion." Those were the first words he'd uttered since arrival.

Yuudai's dark eyes turned to slits. "You think you're all that now," he hissed, "but just wait until it all catches up with you. See if you'll still be so smug then."

Shisui gaped. Kagura looked distressed. The waiter who had just brought over the drinks and appetizers gave them all a horrified look, and scuttled away as quickly as possible.

"Let's just eat!" Shisui announced brightly, desperation seeping into his voice. He plopped a gyoza into his mouth and chewed with demented gusto.

Kagura was the only one who seemed to have heard him, and gamely picked up a piece of crab tempura. Yuudai went straight for the sake, knocking it back with alarming speed and alacrity.

Itachi continued to sit in immobile silence, chin propped on the heel of his palm. After a few minutes, Shisui made a frustrated noise and began piling food onto Itachi's plate, because sometimes he deeply suspected that the younger boy was hiding some kind of acute eating disorder. For some reason, this caused Kagura to drop her chopsticks and give him another morose look. He just couldn't win.

"Don't let it get to you," Yuudai said, slanting Kagura a crooked smile, and added in stage whisper, "There's no accounting for taste, after all."

Itachi, who had up till then done a stellar job of ignoring their existence, dropped his hand to the table abruptly and sent his cousin a withering glare. The temperature at the table sank to arctic condition.

"Damn, I'm so hungry," Shisui said hopelessly. "Where is our entrée?" He sent a beseeching look at the servers, all of whom glanced away hurriedly and busied themselves with various menial tasks.

"Oh, are we at the part where you start the spoon-feeding already?" Yuudai sneered, taking another sip of sake. Shisui recalled that Yuu held his liquor like shit, but got mouthier the more he imbibed.

He would have reached over and grabbed the bottle out of his cousin's hand if Kagura hadn't jumped to her feet at that moment and said in a rush, "I'm sorry, guys, I just remembered that I have something I need to take care of. Maybe another time."

With that, she spun around and started walking hastily to the door. It took Shisui a full half-minute to process the situation, and then he was frantically throwing himself over the back of their booth and breaking into a run. "Kagura-san," he called, racing across the room. "Wait!"

He reached her right by the exit, and caught her wrist to get her attention. Kagura darted her eyes at his face wildly for a fraction of a second, before quickly dropping her gaze, the shells of her ears colored a deep, uncomfortable shade of pink.

"Please don't go," Shisui pleaded. "I don't know what the hell is going on in there, but you're my only ally now. If you leave, I'll probably be driven to ritual suicide by the end of the night."

Kagura looked up at him imploringly. "Shisui-kun," she said quietly, "why did you bring Itachi-kun?"

Shisui's heart plummeted. "I didn't know that Yuudai had some beef with him," he reasoned. "I just thought we'd all have a nice time together." _Which was obviously my first mistake_, he thought glumly.

"It's not just Yuu," Kagura whispered, staring at the floor. "He intimidates me a little sometimes, too."

"What?" Shisui gawped. "Why would you be scared of him? I mean, yeah, he can be a freak from time to time, but I've seen you face down a battalion of trained soldiers without flinching. It doesn't make sense!"

"It's not that," Kagura said, and inexplicably began to flush. "I just—I have to go, Shisui-kun."

She pulled her wrist free from his slackened grip, and walked out into the street, leaving Shisui to stand open-mouthed at the doorway staring after her retreating figure.

-x-

Astoundingly, Itachi and Yuudai had managed to neither kill each other nor cause any irreparable damage by the time Shisui got back to the table. He was extremely glad, faint blessing as it were, because if his irritation level got any higher it would be _him_ committing justified manslaughter in that restaurant tonight.

"Poor Kagura," Yuudai said, sniggering around his sake dish. "And she'd been looking forward to this so much, too."

"The hell is that supposed to mean?" Shisui said, feeling increasingly homicidal. This whole adventure was going south faster than humanly possible. "And stop_ drinking_. You have to go to work tomorrow."

"Yeah, yeah," Yuudai muttered, pulling a sour expression. "Work, work, work. God, I'm sick to my dick with all that bullshit. Who the fuck do they think they are, right?"

Shisui jerked the sake out of his hand. "Yeah, that's enough out of you." Out of the corner of his eye, he noticed that Itachi had gone back to glowering at Yuudai, his entire expression turned to stone.

"It doesn't matter," Yuudai continued. "Won't be long until we'll be the ones running the show…" He stopped himself, and smirked across the table at Itachi, "Well, provided that _someone_ does his job right."

Yuudai had clearly been rendered blind by intoxication, because any other person would have crapped their pants by now under the intense glare Itachi was giving him. "What are you talking about?" Shisui asked, frowning in confusion.

"You've been away too long, Shisui," Yuudai said dismissively, giving him a pitying look. "Things have started moving pretty fast around here while you were gone, you know. Maybe you should go to some of the meetings sometimes."

"What meetings?"

The lazy sneer vanished from Yuudai's lips. His eyes bulged, and his face went slack for a second before he dashed around the booth and grabbed Itachi's arm. "He doesn't know?" he asked, in a tight whisper.

And when Itachi just stared back at him icily, Yuudai's eyes widened in apparent comprehension. "No wonder I never see him at any of the meetings," he muttered. His features contorted into a dark scowl as he launched into a volley of clipped, incisory questions, "Why haven't you told him? I thought Shisui was your best friend? What the hell are you playing at?"

"Uh, guys, still in the room?" Shisui said, waving his hand. It was almost inconceivable that Itachi would have a secret that he had shared with _Yuudai_ and not him. Suddenly, he felt horribly betrayed.

He stared pointedly at Itachi, hoping for an explanation, but apparently the jerk was going through one of his legendary stubborn fits again because he resolutely refused to meet Shisui's eyes.

"Well, if you won't, I will," Yuudai said, sounding disgusted. "We could really use his help." And turning to Shisui, he said, "Listen, Shisui, why don't you come over to my house after this? My father and I have something you'll definitely want to hea—"

He never got the chance to finish.

Shisui had had dreams like this, where everyone around him had started acting like complete opposites of their usual selves, and instead of being calm and self-possessed Itachi had turned into some kind of rash, impulsive hothead with a hair-trigger temper and no sense of self-control. So when he saw Itachi's hand swiftly wrapping around Yuudai's neck in a simple but deadly maneuver designed to crush a man's throat using minimal force, a part of him was still expecting to wake up any minute now.

He blinked, and the scene didn't change. Yuudai was still pinned to the back of his seat, face flushed red and purple as his brain lost oxygen, but somehow still finding the breath to choke out garbled insults between desperate gasps. Itachi, practically on top of him, held on fast with an expression of needle-pointed intensity, heedless of his victim's fingers scrabbling and scratching uselessly at his hand.

"What the fuck are you doing?" Shisui roared, jumping to his feet as the entire restaurant got up en masse and rushed for the door in a thundering stampede. "Get away from him right now!"

Itachi ignored him. Shisui saw red. He drove both of his fists into the table, denting it and sending utensils clattering. "That's it, you two! I'm pulling ranks!"

To be accurate, he wasn't Itachi's superior, but now was no time to fuss over technicalities.

"Itachi, let him go," Shisui ordered in the voice he reserved for conducting high-stake raids, turning from one deranged cousin to the other. "Yuu… _shut the fuck up_."

Both of them stared at him, but did not move away from each other.

Shisui gritted his teeth, and wondered despairingly whether he would have to march over and physically pry his normally imperturbable best friend off his rapidly asphyxiating cousin, which would probably prove difficult given said friend's revoltingly pigheaded nature and equally revolting adeptness at taijutsu.

As he made a move to do just that, Itachi released his grip. He stepped away from Yuudai, who immediately slumped back against the booth, wracked with many hacking coughs. Shisui didn't miss a beat, just closed his fingers around Itachi's deceptively thin wrist and dragged him out into a clear area of the now-empty restaurant.

"Have you lost your fragile grip on reality?" he demanded, angrier than he could remember being in recent memory. "What the hell did you do that for?"

Itachi said nothing. His eyes narrowed up at Shisui in cold fury—but he also didn't wrench his wrist away or attempt violence again, so perhaps no lines had been crossed. Yet.

The restaurant owner strode angrily forward, with the likely intention of throwing them out on their asses, but immediately recognized them (or at least the symbol on the back of their shirts) and beat a hasty retreat. _Three Uchiha walk into a bar_, Shisui thought, chagrined. It was all fun and games until that wonderful, probably-the-result-of-inbreeding psychotic streak reared its ugly head.

"Hey…" he started again, but stopped when his peripheral vision caught Yuudai rising out of his seat, caught the flare of the Sharingan and the flash of steel.

By the time the world cleared again, the kunai was halfway across the room. Shisui's hand was now locked around Yuudai's wrist, holding him face down on the floor with one arm twisted behind his back. He wouldn't be caught at unawares twice in one night—at least he could count on that, the one Uchiha trait they all had in common.

"That," he intoned in a low voice, "was very stupid, Yuu. What the hell is wrong with you?"

Yuudai reared up at him, and hit the floor again, _hard_. The three tomoe in his eyes spun furiously. "You're going to take that son of a bitch's side?"

"I'll get to him in a minute," Shisui said, tightening his grip slightly. "But first, tell me I misheard and you didn't just call Mikoto-sama a bitch."

The restaurant was completely deserted, save for the three of them. Even the employees had fled into the kitchen, barricading the door behind them. Above him, Itachi stood motionlessly, eyes still dark and traceless of surprise.

"F-fine," Yuudai said through clenched teeth, deactivating his Sharingan. "I'm fine now. Let me up."

"Is that fine like 'I'm no longer insane', or fine like 'I'm trying to trick you so I can go back to assaulting the _other _insane guy'?"

"_Fine_."

"Good," Shisui said. He let go, and took a few steps back, waited for Yuudai to rise shakily to his feet and turn around to face him.

"Alright," his cousin said with visible effort, massaging his reddened wrist. "Since you obviously have no idea what's going on, I'm going to let this go—but if you know what's good for you, you might want to start reconsidering whose side you want to stand on from here on out."

"What do you mean 'whose side'?" Shisui snapped. "You're drunk."

"Open your eyes, Shisui!" Yuudai snarled, grabbing him by the shoulder. In a significantly lower voice, he said, "He never even planned on letting you in on any of it. He obviously doesn't give a shit about you."

Shisui felt something churn inside him. "That's really none of your business," he stated coldly, and did _not_ turn around to look at Itachi's face.

Yuudai snorted. "Yeah, keep telling yourself that. You don't know shit."

"What don't I know?" Shisui asked, slapping Yuudai's hand off his shoulder. "Are you going to tell me, or are you going to keep being a jackass?"

For a long moment, Yuudai just stared at him. First in incredulity, then in anger and resentment. Shisui felt his heart lurch; he immediately recognized the look of someone who had just made the decision that the person standing in front of him was no longer worth the trouble.

"You've made your choice then," Yuudai hissed. All venom, the way he'd never spoken to Shisui before. "Don't live to regret it."

"Yuu…"

But Yuudai wasn't listening to him anymore. "You'll get what's coming to you," he spat, breaking into a crazed, twisted smile. "Just like the rest of them."

Shisui could feel himself wavering. He wanted to take it back, wanted to apologize and ask to be let back in. It had taken so long to get to this point, and he didn't want to throw it all away over something he didn't particularly understand.

Behind him, Itachi walked out the door without a backward glance.

Swallowing hard around the sense of hollowing loss, Shisui spared his cousin one last appealing look before clenching his fists and marching out of the restaurant, leaving the bridge behind him to burn.

-x-

**End of Part II

* * *

**

**A/N: **Thanks for reading, guys! All three of you XD I'm determined to finish this whether or not anyone else cares (and really, no one does), but if you do happen to read this and do not find it a complete travesty, would you mind dropping me a note? It'll make me -x-so-x- happy.


	3. Part III

**Title: **The Colder Water (3/?)

**Series:** Naruto

**Pairing:** Shisui/Itachi

**Summary:** The devil is in the details. Shisui. Itachi. A sorta love story.

**Disclaimer:** Naruto is the property of Kishimoto Masashi.

**Notes:** I should have said this right at the beginning, but yes, this story is canon-compliant. That is why it's only a sequel-in-spirit to _Who Died and Made You Lolita?_ because canon is… yeah. So if you haven't read/watched up to the revelations about Itachi's true motives, this story might be hard to understand. (My writing is confusing enough as it is.) Again, a million thanks to those of you who have been reading, especially if you took the time to leave me awesome reviews that I am just too embarrassed to reply to. Or possibly I am a robot; there is always that possibility XD

* * *

**The Colder Water**

**Part III**

-x-

_(Listen up, boy…)_

_Ply his heart with gold and silver  
Take your sweetheart down to the river  
Dash him on the paving stones  
It may break your heart to break his bones  
But someone's got to do the culling of the fold_

-x-

They had been walking for nearly five minutes in mutual silence before either spoke.

"You didn't have to leave on my account," Itachi said, with zero trace of remorse, and Shisui had to take a moment to negotiate with his blood pressure, because _seriously? _

"For future reference," he said sorely. "Nothing kills the mood like a round of fisticuff."

Itachi snorted humorlessly. "Aren't you going to ask why I attacked him again?"

Shisui had to consider this for a moment. "No," he said finally. _For now, anyway_. "You don't _usually_ do things without a good reason." He paused, and added, "Yuu can be kind of a tool, anyway." He had previously found this trait entertaining, but was now reconsidering it in light of recent developments, and the fact that it made him want to maim things.

Apparently mollified by this answer, Itachi gave him a smile—small and hard and far from genial, but a smile nonetheless, traced in tangerine streetlight. Perhaps it was his way of saying, "Thanks for putting up with my crazy ass," but that was probably reaching a bit.

Still, he was talking again, which was definitely a positive sign. Shisui could work with that.

They turned a corner, and found themselves starting down a long road that led away from the busy downtown district. At this point, something occurred to Shisui.

"Hey, aren't you going the wrong way?" he asked. "The Compound is on the other side of town."

Itachi stopped dead in his track. Shisui saw a deliberating expression flicker across his face, gone as quickly as it had appeared.

"We have to report early to headquarters for the mission tomorrow," he said in a strange voice, fraught and a little uncertain. "And your house is closer. I was hoping that I could stay over tonight."

Shisui's mouth fell open—but only for a second, because even though another attack of acute onset twelve-year-old glee had threatened to seize him again, certain things had been slipping into place steadily throughout the night and could no longer be ignored.

"Itachi," he began, speaking as casually as he could manage. "Are you trying to avoid your family?"

That earned him a guarded look. "What makes you say that?"

"Well, what else could it be? First, you wanted to come with me to dinner—which you clearly enjoyed _so much—_and now you're asking if you can stay the night. Why don't you want to go home?"

Itachi jerked his head away sharply, and just like that, the set of his shoulders grew tense again. "If you find it inconvenient to have me over, a simple 'no' would have sufficed," he said, and started walking at a brisk pace in the opposite direction.

"Hey, wait, that's not what I meant," Shisui called, and began running after him. "Stop!"

Itachi's steps slowed, and came to a halt at the street corner outside the supermarket Shisui had planned to visit earlier in the day. Shisui went to stand next to him, but it felt like there was a chasm between them.

"To an extent, you're not wrong," Itachi said, staring straight ahead. "At the moment, I am involved in an extensive and highly demanding investigation that requires a lot of energy and concentration. At the same time, I do not wish for this engagement to prevent me from performing my duties to the clan. The only reasonable course of action is to remove one source of distraction until the other task is completed."

He gave Shisui a probing look, and asked, "Do you understand what I mean?"

Shisui nodded placatingly, even though he personally couldn't see a shred of logic in that argument, probably because arguments like that only made sense in the minds of crazy people. He cast his own mind around for some credible line of reasoning, and finally latched onto one.

"Well, what about Sasuke?" he asked. "Didn't you promise to take him out for swimming practice on Sunday?"

Itachi looked at him sharply. "How do you know about that?"

_Give me a break_, Shisui thought, rolling his eyes—tamping down a sense of reasonless hurt. Okay, so maybe he was being a little pushy, but it was mostly out of altruistic concern. Itachi didn't have to act like Shisui was trying to horn in on his quality time with his brother or anything.

"He told me," he explained, and decided to omit the part about Sasuke inviting him to join them. "We ran into each other this afternoon. Anyway, answer the question, do you plan on avoiding your brother too?"

He could just imagine Sasuke's heartbroken face if he heard this conversation. It was like hearing the most sorrowful meowing of the tiniest of kittens lost in the most echoing of caves.

"I believe it is in his best interest," Itachi said, expression softening into thoughtfulness, "if I also distance myself from him for the time being."

Shisui frowned. The longer this conversation went on, the less sense it seemed to make. "How is that 'in his best interest'? The kid thinks the sun shines out of your ass, you think he's gonna take this well?"

"I've already given you my reason," Itachi said tersely. "When I asked if I could come to your house, I didn't expect to be met with this line of interrogation."

And that was when something inside Shisui jolted, like a bolt of lightning striking between his temples.

Itachi had _asked_.

In the past, there had been no lack of occasions when Itachi had stayed overnight at Shisui's house. All of them had involved the younger boy appearing unannounced on his doorstep, citing inane reasons like, "It's snowing," and, "I would like to make sure you don't miss school tomorrow because of your concussion," and, of course, "We have an early mission and your house is closer to headquarters."

But he had never _asked_.

All the scattered pieces were clicking together now, faster than he could count them. Clarity began to swim in, and so Shisui put two and two together and came up with something vaguely disturbing.

Itachi was cracking.

But… under _what?_

A powerful gust of wind blew down the street, pelting them with dead leaves. The air felt suddenly cold, Shisui thought. It smelled like rain. If he looked up, he would probably see sullen clouds gathering, brewing harbingers of a late summer storm. He couldn't stand around on this street corner attempting to puzzle out the mental tinderbox that he called his best friend forever.

And why shouldn't he bring Itachi home anyway? After all, _he_ was the one who'd been griping about not being able to spend more time together—and more time spent together meant more time he could employ to figure out what was eating at Itachi. Whatever it was, Shisui decided, must be having a hell of a time.

"Alright, fine," he said, faking resignation. "I can't even work up the energy to try and figure out your twisty little head right now. You can stay over." Under his breath, he muttered with some unforeseeably genuine bitterness, "Not like there's a shortage of room or anything."

Itachi didn't look convinced. "If you're bothered by it—"

"I said it's fine already," Shisui brushed him off. "Come on, you can borrow my old pajamas. Let's braid each other's hair."

-x-

Shisui brushed his teeth with an intensity that had little to do with hygienic concern. The first half of his "Weaseling Out Itachi's Secrets" plan—brownie points for brilliant use of puns—had gone swimmingly. They had arrived at Shisui's house, where he had cobbled together a quick, deplorable meal to make up for the dinner they'd both missed out on. Even though the instant curry had come out off-color and undercooked, Itachi had eaten his portion without complaint, and had even engaged in small talk—or rather, had sat in benign silence while Shisui had made small talk.

So far so good, and now that he was sufficiently buttered up and they were preparing for bed, it was the perfect opportunity to wring out those secrets.

"Here's what I don't get," Shisui said around his toothbrush, walking into the bedroom where the futons were already laid out. "When Yuudai said that—"

The toothbrush fell out of his mouth.

Itachi was sitting up on his futon, and was in the process of pulling on the pajama top Shisui had dug out for him. He paused to give Shisui a questioning look, leaving the shirt unbuttoned, which afforded Shisui with a clear view of the sight that had shocked him to begin with.

The front of his friend's torso was a map of bruises.

Black and blue and blunt purple, angry red and faded yellow, like perverse flowers growing violently out of the pale skin. A cluster of them ringed around Itachi's throat just below his Adam's apple like a lopsided choker, which Shisui realized would have been visible if not for the turtleneck of the ANBU uniform and the high collar of the trademark Uchiha shirt. But there they were now, a mess of broken capillaries and blood-clotted contusions, and he couldn't tear his eyes away.

Shisui's first instinct was to blurt out, "Is your father beating you?" though it took him all of five seconds to realize how stupid that sounded, and to remember that he and Itachi were real people living in the real world and not, say, two characters out of the trashy novels the Hokage was occasionally found reading.

He dropped to the floor next to Itachi, and asked in a tight voice, "How'd you get those?"

"Carelessness," answered Itachi, which sounded about as credible as if he'd said, "Breakdancing."

"Can I have a look at them?"

His fingers didn't bother waiting for permission, already hovering over one particularly brutal looking blotch of purple on the curve of Itachi's pelvis, peeking out of his waistband, the indistinct edges melting into the clear skin. How did you even get a bruise _there?_ Itachi didn't strike him as the type to go walking around banging into doors and furniture. He had been working in Intel, so it wasn't likely that he'd seen much action lately, and if he hadn't done it to himself then… then someone must have done it _to_ him.

This thought made Shisui go slightly cold.

He traced with his fingers the trail of injuries from collarbone down the ladder of Itachi's ribs back to the sharp jut of his hipbone, brushing across the abdomen. Nothing on the arms and shoulders, but the paths curved all the way around his torso, and Shisui wondered just how far they went, whether Itachi's back looked anything like his front. Acute bruising for maximum pain—but only where the evidence wouldn't be seen. Whoever had done this knew exactly what they were doing.

"Are you satisfied with your inspection?" Itachi said, somewhere above him.

Shisui blinked, and realized he still had his fingers on Itachi's hipbone. "S-sorry," he stammered, drawing back in embarrassment. He could feel his ears redden all along the shells.

Itachi straightened his top, and began buttoning it up like nothing out of the ordinary had occurred. The sleeves were too long and his fingers only poked out halfway, which really said something because Shisui had outgrown those jammies at _twelve_.

"You should get those looked at," he said stiltedly, eyes still glued to the glaring marks at Itachi's throat. "Or maybe we should put something on it right now…"

Itachi's fingers paused at the second to last button. "Why do you like taking care of others," he asked flatly, "when you're so terrible at taking care of yourself?"

"I am _not_," Shisui sniped. He didn't detect any hint of mockery, but felt the sting anyway. Classic Itachi.

A roll of thunder clamored distantly to the east. He heard the clattering sound of raindrops on the roof, a soft patter that escalated into heavy downpour. The storm had begun.

"What Yuu said back there," Shisui said, feeling a bit spiteful from the earlier jab. This was what he had meant to do anyway. "That there's something you're not telling me. Was he telling the truth?"

It took every ounce of his self-control not to voice the question that he really wanted to ask: _Were you ever planning on telling me at all?_

"I think you can guess the answer to that," Itachi said after a moment. It was as much of a concession as he would ever be able to give, Shisui knew.

"Is it important?" he pressed. "Is it something I should know?"

"It's important," said Itachi, voice soft. "However, it's much more important to me that you don't know."

Shisui glared at him. "So you can be honest with a guy you tried to choke to death, but you'd rather keep me in the dark?"

"Shisui," Itachi snapped suddenly, dark eyes flaring with a strange intensity. "Don't _ask_ me about this."

The air went still between them. The sound of rain filled Shisui's ears like a crashing ocean.

His toothbrush was still lying by the door where it had fallen. Shisui picked it up and stalked back into the bathroom without a word. He turned on the tap, gargled, and then dunked his entire head under the cool jet of water to wash his face, drowning out the storm of noise whirring in his head.

-x-

Sometimes, in his less lucid moments, Shisui wished the person he was friends with wasn't Uchiha Itachi.

Which would just leave Itachi as some highly gifted, slightly terrifying kid who'd grown up too fast and had problems interacting in normal human society. But if he wasn't Uchiha Itachi, and Shisui wasn't Uchiha Shisui, then they wouldn't have the shadow of the clan hanging over their damn heads all the time, and in that case, perhaps—

Perhaps _what?_

Shisui sensed Itachi before he saw him. He looked up, wiped the water from his face.

"What?" he asked, addressing the reflection in the mirror. "What do you want?"

"You're not satisfied with the answer I gave," replied Itachi, dry as bone.

"You didn't give me any answer at all," Shisui said roughly, swinging around as a frown pulled at his brows. "Just imagine your friend turning up one day with a bunch of improbable injuries and hiding stuff from you. Would you be satisfied if you were me?"

Itachi's face caved into an expression of grim mutiny. "If you told me that something was important to you," he ground out, stepping toward Shisui, "I would not press the issue."

It was a small bathroom, evidently not meant to be shared. The edge of the sink cut a hard line into Shisui's tailbone. Itachi was moving directly into his personal space, and Shisui had the fleeting desire to scoot back, maybe climb up on the countertop, because perhaps he might need the higher ground here.

Which was just completely ridiculous.

"Maybe that's good enough for you, but not me," Shisui said, and took a brazen step forward, pushing back against the spatial invasion. "I'm not into lying by omission."

Because you weren't supposed to shut the door on people you cared about, and even someone as lacking in emotional intelligence as Itachi should know that—and sure, Shisui loved him, probably loved him as fiercely and irrationally as he had loved his mom and dad, and would continue to till the end of whatever, but goddamn it there were _limits._

Limits that, apparently, Itachi had never learned, because the soft moue of his mouth turned sharp and he said, bitingly, "Don't call me a liar, Shisui."

"Then don't act like one," Shisui snapped. His voice crackled out like static, like electricity. He didn't have nearly as much experience in the art of glowering as Itachi, but for this, he could feint with the best.

A deafening roar of thunder tore out of the sky. The storm was nearing its zenith, rattling violently on the doors and windows. He could hear the house creak inside its weary bones under the assault. Another clap of thunder, and the light dimmed out for a moment before flickering back to life again, filling the bathroom with the electrical thrum of burning filaments, clinical white noise over the dull rumble of the storm.

Itachi's eyes flicked up at the stuttering bulb, before traveling back to meet Shisui's. "They say that thunder is the war cry of gods," he said, calm again and oddly solemn.

"Do they?" Shisui said, slumping back against the sink. "That's fascinating." He let his elbows splay out over the countertop, suddenly filled with exhaustion. His thoughts felt huge and unwieldy in his head.

Itachi didn't move from where he stood. His gaze stayed on Shisui, silent and heavy.

"Look," Shisui said. "Is there something that you want in particular, or can we go to bed? I'm bushed, and we do have to get up pretty early tomorrow."

Itachi seemed to consider this for a moment. His long lashes threw deep, fluttering shadows on his cheeks in the diluted light of the room. Then he lifted his eyes, and said, "Have you ever wondered how far you would go to keep the life you have from changing?"

The words were strange, but his voice held the same staccato diction as always, which was why Shisui totally didn't heed the warning bell until it was too late and Itachi was already in motion.

Shisui had a hair-split moment to wonder where those five inches of space he so cherished had gone before Itachi's hands were on his neck, fingers carding lightly through the damp hair that curled over Shisui's nape. The soft press of fingertips into the shallow inlet at the back of his head felt so vivid that Shisui didn't immediately pick up on the fact that the minute pressure was dragging his face downward, until it was low enough that Itachi barely had to raise himself on his toes to seal his lips over Shisui's.

He pulled away almost immediately, hands falling to his side as distance poured back in between them. Itachi's eyes lingered on Shisui's mouth for an instance, with all the detached air of a person studying a signature he'd just left at the end of a letter. Then he turned and drifted out of the bathroom.

Shisui blinked. Again. And _again_. If he blinked hard enough perhaps he would return to the real world, a world in which grass was green and the sky was blue and his best friend hadn't made some kind of abstract statement about preserving the status quo, only to immediately contradict himself by taking their already questionable relationship to the next level without Shisui's permission.

Even though he called Itachi an incestuous bastard a lot in his head, it wasn't like he'd ever wanted _confirmation_ of the fact.

Then the stagnation broke and everything sped into full awareness again, and Shisui was blowing through the doorway of his bedroom like a hurricane, a force of self-righteous nature.

"Hey, you!"

Itachi looked up from the floor—he was actually _peeling back the cover of his futon, _like he'd meant to just trot off to bed after shaving off probably a decade of Shisui's life.

Shisui stomped over and kneeled down to level with the mental patient he'd somehow allowed into his bedroom. "What the fuck was _that?_" he asked, lowering his voice to what he hoped was a menacing hiss.

Naturally, Itachi didn't even turn a hair. His expression remained indecipherable. "Nothing," he said maddeningly. "I just wanted to test out something."

"You wanted to test out…" Shisui sputtered. Heavy shock sometimes caused trauma—could this be aphasia? "You wanted to test out _a kiss?_"

Itachi actually had the nerve to look annoyed. "I think we've already established that."

"But…" Shisui protested, fishing around for words. "That was a really pathetic excuse of one. I mean, I don't want you to come away from this thinking I'm a shitty kisser or something."

Oh God, just what the hell was coming out of his mouth?

He could tell this response was also not what Itachi had expected, because the irritation melted from his face, quickly replaced by utter incredulity. This humiliation was almost worth it just to see the pole-axed expression Itachi so frequently inspired in others appear on his own face for a change.

"I mean," Shisui went on recklessly, moving in to breach the boundary of Itachi's very well-defined personal bubble. "I could do _much_ better than that."

And the thing was: he wasn't even lying.

The summer before, distraught and nigh-inconsolable from the life-ending epiphany that despite his best and most ardent efforts, Uchiha Mikoto would never be his, Shisui had been talked into embarking on a short but scarring series of increasingly ill-advised dates by some of his more sadistic senpai. After Reiko had laughed in his face and Miyabi had slapped him for accidentally insulting her favorite romance author and Kanna had burst into horrified tears upon learning that Shisui killed people for a living, he had been ready to declare celibacy for life—at which point someone had introduced him to Hisazu Natsume.

Natsume had half a year on him, and a laugh like a rolling birdsong. Shisui recalled in a flash her dark slanted eyes and sweet curving mouth, the colorful shirts she'd worn that had hugged the soft curve of her sides, and the long black hair piled loosely at the top of her head—it was now becoming quite apparent that yes, he indeed had a type. She had kissed him with awe-inspiring confidence, her hips warm and generous under his nervous palms, and though they'd only dated for about a month, he'd gotten pretty adventurous with her (read: second base), and had managed to pick up a thing or two.

"You bumped my nose," he muttered, arching in further, close enough now to see past the blank veneer and spot the stunned realization sprouting in the dark of Itachi's irises. This was crazy, utterly unconscionable—but revenge schemes often were, Shisui decided, and tipped his face down.

He had time enough to register the soft hitch of breath and the way Itachi's mouth made a funny shape before they were pressed together again, lips to lips. The tip of Itachi's nose was cold against his skin, but his lips were warm, and when Shisui tilted his head and nudged his mouth open, Itachi's eyes slid shut, confirming that he was not, in fact, going to knife Shisui in the guts for this.

Shisui grinned against Itachi's mouth, and closed his eyes, tasting nothing but mint toothpaste and chasing the wet flicker of tongue. He felt tiny dents of pressure on his upper arms—fingertips digging into his skin—and allowed his own hand to slide around and settle between Itachi's shoulder blades, fingers spread to map the span of his narrow wing bones, the bump of the top vertebrae snug in the heart of his palm. His other hand ended up curled somewhere around the small of Itachi's back, pulling him in insistently but gently, mindful of possible bruises, things unseen.

One last brush of lips at the corner of his mouth, soft and wet, and then he was pulling back, shivery and breathless, an electric current humming beneath the surface of his skin. He cleared his throat, and thought about saying something smug like, "See? That's how it's done," but the words wouldn't leave his mouth.

"So yeah," he said finally. His lips felt swollen. He wanted to flick out his tongue and lick them. "It's… that… yeah."

Itachi gazed back at him, expression shut down like a storm shelter—only the effect was somewhat mitigated by his red, glistening lips and his eyes, all wide and glassy, fringed with dark lashes.

"Alright then," he said stiffly. Then he pulled back his cover, muttered a quick, "Goodnight, Shisui," and dove under.

Silent avoidance was actually not a half bad idea, Shisui thought, and then he wasn't thinking anything at all. He got up, turned out the light, and crawled into his own futon. In the dark, he couldn't see Itachi's face or the curve of his shoulder or the fall of his loosened hair—and that was kind of the point.

Outside, the storm continued to rage, tossing white-blue flashes of lightning through the window. The smell of copper curled through the house as they lay side by side, the curve of their bodies forming a pair of parentheses, punctuating the gulf of stagnant air in between.

-x-

The next morning Shisui felt like the dead, probably because he had lain awake most of the night listening to the rain only to fall into a fitful sleep near dawn and wake up half an hour later humping his futon.

He had debated going for a walk or taking a shower, or possibly going completely insane and asking Itachi if he just wanted to suck face again. If he had followed through with that latter impulse, he surely would not have lived to greet the morning.

But with all this non-sleeping going on, Shisui had had a lot of time to think. All technicalities accounted for, he and Itachi were probably more than distantly related, but from what Shisui could tell their clan had always done their share of cousin-kissing anyway, so the weird incestuous thing didn't really bothered him. At least if he and Itachi mated nobody would be born with webbed eyes or clubbed feet or anything, and dear God, how had his life progressed to the point where that sentence wasn't sarcasm?

_So if it's not the incest thing_, he thought feverishly, _then it must be the gay thing, right?_

That argument would probably be much more convincing if thinking about the way Itachi had looked after the kiss didn't cause a dull heat to kindle in his abdomen, spreading up into the hollow of his ribcage.

"—do you make of it?"

"What?" Shisui yelped. "No one! I didn't make out with anyone!"

Kagura stared at him strangely. Shisui could feel his entire face turning a shade of red not found in nature. He coughed loudly, and said, "Sorry, what were you saying?"

She blinked in bemusement, and started to say, "I was just asking what you thought—" but trailed off abruptly. He gave her a questioning look, but her eyes were focused on something over his shoulder, a scowl materializing between her pretty brows. Shisui glanced around in confusion.

"Would you like to go over the details of the mission?" Itachi asked, and Shisui jerked backward so quickly he knocked into Kagura and almost sent the both of them tumbling to the floor.

He helped her straighten up, apologizing profusely, and then turned back to Itachi. Realizing they were standing too closely together, he scooted a few steps backward, and then hated himself and drifted back in.

If Itachi was disturbed by this spastic behavior, his face didn't show it. He looked disgustingly composed, in fact, wooden mask over the side of his head and a scroll in hand. "I have the order and instructions here," Itachi said, cool as cucumber, as if he hadn't crawled out of bed this morning almost tripping over his oversized pajamas and then spent upwards of three minutes blearily groping around on the floor for his hair-tie.

Shisui felt a smile tug at the corners of his lips at the thought, and just like that, the tension melted from his shoulders. "Sure. Lay it out for me."

It didn't have to be awkward. As weird as what had happened the night before was, he knew weirder things had been and—knowing the two of them—weirder things were still to come. Nothing but the striations of a long friendship, constant as a heartbeat, wild and electrifying as a lightning storm.

"Itachi-san," Mamiya said, appearing beside them. "Hokage-sama would like to see you in his office for a moment. He says it's important."

The faintest crease seemed to appear between Itachi's brows. He nodded at Mamiya and handed the mission scroll to Shisui before striding briskly through the door leading into Sarutobi's inner office.

"How come nobody ever calls me 'Shisui-san'?" Shisui wondered aloud. Mamiya glared at him as she walked off.

"Are you and Itachi-kun working together again?" Kagura asked, and Shisui swiveled around at the sound of her voice. He had completely forgotten that she was there.

"Uh, yeah," he said. "Just for this one thing—but maybe I can try to get the three of us grouped together for an assignment sometime!"

The look on Kagura's face informed him that she wanted nothing of the kind. "Shisui-kun," she began seriously, "did you know that Yuu resigned from the ANBU?"

Shisui nearly bit his tongue. "He did what?"

"That's what I was trying to tell you," Kagura said, somewhat exasperated. "He handed in his resignation papers this morning. Have you spoken to him?"

"I—no." His stomach felt all knotted up suddenly. "No, he didn't tell me anything."

Kagura gave him a long, searching look. "Did something happen last night after I left?"

Shisui swallowed hard around the unpleasant taste on his tongue, but was interrupted before he could give an answer. There was some kind of commotion behind him. He turned around for a look, and the bad taste gushed back into his mouth, tenfold in bitterness.

"What are they doing here?" he snarled under his breath, glaring at the quartet of Root shinobi who had appeared at the entrance, a dark, silent blot siphoning all the light from the room. He wondered if they might be escorting Danzou again—but the man was nowhere in sight.

"I don't know," Kagura muttered, and laid one hand on Shisui's arm, probably because she knew that he wanted to go over and start some kind of career-ending scene with the newcomers.

He likely would have anyway, if the door to the Hokage's office hadn't swung abruptly open. Sarutobi came striding out, wearing a grim expression that deepened the lines on his face, with Itachi close on his heels, mouth held tight in a flat line. His eyes had a rawboned edge to them that made Shisui frown.

"Shisui," Sarutobi said bluntly. "Your assignment has been changed. Itachi will not be accompanying you on today's mission."

"What?" Shisui said. "Why not?"

"He is to be embedded with a unit from Root for a counterintelligence assignment."

"What kind of assignment?" he demanded, slanting a questioning look at Itachi, who pointedly did not meet his gaze.

"You do not have clearance to pry into the responsibilities of another division," Sarutobi replied, giving him a cutting look that brooked no argument.

Shisui opened his mouth hotly, but cut himself off when he saw the Root shinobi marching forward in two's. They surrounded Itachi, momentarily blocking him from view with their taller frames, and Shisui was already striding angrily toward them when the Hokage's booming voice stopped him in his track.

"_Uchiha Shisui_," Sarutobi barked, his deep voice rolling out like thunder. "Are you going to disobey my direct order?"

Shisui flinched. He had seldom witnessed the dark fury currently emanating from the Hokage: it was, appropriately, at once glorious and terrifying.

There was nothing more to be said. He watched, fists clenched, as the men from Root filed out of the room. Itachi made to follow them, but paused halfway across the floor and walked quickly back to Shisui. His ANBU mask was already up, shielding his expression from view.

"In the event that I am delayed from returning," he said quietly. "Please take Sasuke swimming on Sunday."

His fingers brushed Shisui's arm briefly, stilting the protest trying to escape his mouth, and just like that, he was gone, his absence an empty warmth beside Shisui's body.

Furiously, he turned to glare at the Hokage. "Well, does this mean I'm back on leave, sir?"

"I never said that," Sarutobi said coldly. "Your replacement partner will be here momentarily."

"Sorry, I'm late," an airy voice announced, as if on cue. "I was waylaid having to aid in the rescue of the victims injured in a thirteen horse-cart pile-up."

-x-

The journey out of Konoha was tense and fraught with accusatory silence.

"Don't sulk, Shisui-kun," Kakashi said mildly. "It's highly unprofessional."

Shisui had had enough. He whirled around to face his partner. "Why do you have to be the one with me on this assignment?"

"That hurts," the masked man said, placing a hand dramatically over his heart. "Am I not good enough for you?"

"But you _left_," Shisui said incredulously. He flapped his hands around for emphasis. "You left the ANBU. They shredded your mission records and everything. Why'd you come back?"

Kakashi shrugged. "I'm not coming back. I'm just here to perform one mission as a favor to the Hokage."

"_This_ mission?" Shisui balked. "Are you serious?"

Another noncommittal shrug. "Something like that."

Shisui fumed, and wondered if there was some kind of unspoken rule that all Konoha-born prodigies had to be abstruse and utterly infuriating. He was still brooding over this later that afternoon, concealed in the thick boughs of a tall tree that made up the checkpoint he and Kakashi had agreed upon earlier.

With a tiny pop, the man in question materialized next to him, chakra-smoke swirling. "Sorry, I'm late. I was waylaid—"

"Breaking up a flock of fornicating sheep, blah, blah, blah," Shisui snapped. "Don't you ever have a straight answer to give?"

Kakashi grinned in a highly specious manner, and said, "ETA?"

"Southeast perimeter secured," Shisui grumbled.

"Northwest's also clear," Kakashi said. "My dogs are keeping watch from the guard posts." His voice dropped a pitch, suddenly low and serious. "However, it seems we have a problem."

Shisui tensed. "What's wrong?"

"Come have a look."

The mission Itachi had procured for the two of them—which, Shisui decided with masochistic cheer, would have been the worst first date _ever_—was a simple sabotage job. They were to dispatch a group of guards and destroy the small stash of weaponry stored in the warehouse said guards were protecting before any of the contents could be shipped out to be used against their clients on the battlefield. No fuss, no muss—almost child's play. Definitely nothing two of Fire Nation's most elite couldn't handle.

Except the one warehouse sitting on the docks was actually _three_, the small stash of weaponry was not so small after all and most certainly contained more than just weapons, and the guards moved with military precision and appeared armed to the teeth. Also, they were at least four times the number expected.

At least, that was how it looked from Shisui's vantage point. He glanced over at Kakashi. "Visual?"

The older man put down the binoculars. "Twenty-five in all. Five spread out along the compound's boundary, twenty patrolling the docks."

"Are we certain they're working for the Azai Clan?"

"Undoubtedly," Kakashi replied. "They're all wearing the Azai _mon_ on the front of their armors." He paused, and raised the binocs. "There could be more guards inside, but I'll need some assistance to determine for sure."

"Roger that," Shisui said, and activated his Sharingan. "I can report about half a dozen or so stationed in each of the three warehouses. Maybe more in the biggest one. I sense some energy signatures, but it's hard to tell for sure. Have to get closer to get a more accurate reading."

"There's no need. We already know for certain that the scout team's initial report was off-mark."

Shisui swore under his breath. "Intelligence really screwed the pooch on this one."

Kakashi said nothing. He continued to gaze thoughtfully at the targets.

"Maybe we should just proceed anyway?" Shisui suggested.

"No," said Kakashi, shaking his head. "While I'm fairly certain the two of us can take out most of the guards, there's a more than likely chance some will escape. Besides, we won't be able to destroy the marks before they raise the alarms, which will alert the Azai leaders to Konoha's involvement."

It seemed Kakashi was more than willing to speak clearly and concisely when it came down to business, Shisui reflected. "So what do we do? Go back and call for backup?"

"That won't be possible," Kakashi replied. "I checked the docks schedule. The contents of those warehouses are going to be shipped out later today. The mission would be an immediate failure."

"Damn," Shisui muttered, "there must be enough explosives in there to level five city blocks."

Kakashi nodded. "And by the time our backup arrives, all of it will already be on its way to augment the Azai's siege on Nobunaga Castle."

Shisui placed a thumb across his lips in thought. "You know, it's mostly volatiles in there. If we detonate everything inside that big warehouse in the middle, everything around it will go up." He looked up at Kakashi, and asked, "What do you think the blast radius would be?"

Kakashi's face held an expression of deep calculation. "I'd say a 200-meter perimeter at the very least," he said, after a moment. "To tell the truth, I'm not as concerned about the explosion as I am about the shrapnel. Most of it is going to spread out in a mushroom pattern. Some will definitely surpass the radius."

"Beautiful," Shisui said in disgust. "One misstep, a two-inch fragment slices your throat, and you bleed out like a pig. But we don't have much of a choice, do we?"

"It would be impossible to get at the explosives without being detected," Kakashi said cautiously. "And even if we could, it wouldn't leave enough time to escape the blasting site. This could easily turn into a suicide mission."

"Who says it has to?" Shisui responded. He rose from his crouch, pulling on his mask and cracking his neck in preparation.

Kakashi gave him a speculative look, like he could read Shisui's mind and already knew where this was going. Maybe he'd heard about it from some of the other ANBU, or maybe he just knew a lot of guys with bright ideas in his lifetime.

"If it's too risky for us to do ourselves," Shisui said, jerking his thumb in the direction of the guards, "why not make _them_ do it?"

"All of them?" Kakashi asked. Straight to the point. Shisui was beginning to really appreciate having the man for a partner.

"As many as possible, just to be on the safe side," he said, assessing the odds. "Assuming we're targeting the big warehouse, I'd want to get the guards stationed inside _and_ all the ones patrolling outside. Lock 'em in with the goods, and then send it all up in one big ball of fire."

"Are you sure?"

Shisui nodded firmly. "We're out of range here, so I'll have to get a little closer. Give me some cover—and we'll need to do something about those five standing guard on the outer edge."

Kakashi surveyed the scene before them, eye narrowed. "Bring down that guard, and take his post," he instructed, pointing to the far left. "I'll take the other four, and keep a lookout from there. That should buy you enough time to do your work."

"More than enough," Shisui affirmed, slipping a kunai into his hand. "Stay close," he added. "The moment they've all gone inside the main warehouse, you have to come and get me. I'm… going to be a little out of it, and once they're in there, we're not going have a lot of time."

Something flashed through Kakashi's grey eye, but he only nodded in the affirmative.

"If you let me get pink-misted, you're the first person I'm coming back to haunt," Shisui warned.

"Don't say unlucky things, Shisui-kun," Kakashi said, pulling up his hitai-ate to reveal the implanted Sharingan. "Nobody gets left behind on my team."

-x-

Shisui crouched low in the thicket of bushes behind the warehouses. Next to him on the ground lay the cooling corpse of the guard whose throat he'd just finished slashing.

Bodies were dropping soundlessly somewhere to his four o'clock. With the Sharingan, he just barely caught a flash of white about twenty people-lengths downrange and… yes, Kakashi was in the air. Nothing to worry about there.

Calm down. Had to focus. He needed to stay on task.

The tendrils of chakra in his body rearranged themselves gracefully, curling up his spine as they were delicately funneled to the interface of his brain. Starting small, he focused on one of the guards closest to him, reaching out with an invisible hand to grasp the foreign strand of consciousness…

The effect was immediate. The thug's face went blank and his eyes glazed over. He stumbled a little, but straightened almost instantly and began walking toward the main warehouse. His behavior didn't seem to arouse any suspicion from the other guards. Time to pull out the big guns.

From his low vantage point, Shisui couldn't see all of the men on the docks, but he'd already had their positions and movement patterns memorized. He consulted his mental schematics, and then coaxed the genjutsu gently, so that it blossomed like a blooming flower, spanning out in pursuit of the targets. His mind seemed to expand with it. There was a kind of elegant beauty to it that Shisui was sorry no one but him would ever get to experience. Then again, it was probably for the best.

A tiny pinprick pierced the side of his temple. He pushed the jutsu further, and the pain intensified.

The guards stationed inside the warehouse—turned out there were _nine_ of them—were already under his control. Most of the men on the docks were falling under the influence of the dark mantle the jutsu was spreading over the area. As they ambled one by one through the warehouse's entrance, Shisui counted.

Nineteen.

A flare of panic flashed through his mind, almost breaking his concentration. Shisui mentally kicked himself, and fortified his control over the jutsu while simultaneously searching the area for the stray target and—_there_. Standing on the wooden pier, looking wildly confused at his zombified colleagues. Evidently not the sharpest kunai in the pouch. Shisui reached out and effortlessly snared the numbskull.

The moment the guard's expression went slack, the sides of Shisui's head _exploded_ with searing pain. His eyes ached from the strain being put on the Sharingan. He could almost _feel_ the tomoe spinning.

All the targets were inside the warehouse now, and he could hold the genjutsu long enough to time the exact moment of detonation. Still, it was time to get out of here. A bead of sweat rolled down his forehead into his eye, and he had to blink to chase off the burn.

He got up too quickly, staggered and almost lost his footing, and suddenly the ground was a lot closer...

"Got you," Kakashi said, catching him from behind. He swiftly wrapped Shisui's arm around his shoulders, and then they were moving, the cool air whipping Shisui's face. Grateful that he didn't have to navigate, he closed his eyes, and started the mental countdown.

_Thirty._

As Kakashi put more and more distance between them and the warehouses, it became increasingly difficult to keep track of all twenty-nine strands of mixed consciousness. Focus. Had to focus.

_Twenty-five_.

The migraine was getting worse. Kakashi's support was all that kept him upright.

_Twenty._

Close enough. His head was splitting in two. He needed to disengage. Now.

Easier said than done. There was a reason casting the jutsu on a group of targets was not an advisable idea. Over two dozen coils of consciousness all tangled up together, and his was probably knotted somewhere smack in the middle. Perfect.

_Fiftee—ten?_

Shit. He'd lost count.

They still hadn't cleared the kill zone, and Kakashi was fast but…

_Five. Four. Thre—_

The first of the explosions shattered the air at the same time that Kakashi tackled him and rolled them both behind a large tree. He pushed Shisui flat on the ground, covered his head with one arm, and held on.

The air was assaulted with sounds not meant for human ears. The inner walls of Shisui's skull resounded with the screams of the men in the warehouse as the blast vaporized them into bits of DNA, and he had to bite down on his bottom lip to stop himself from screaming too. He jerked under Kakashi's firm hold, managed to rip his mind away just in time as the explosions rose and expanded, breaking off with the howl of a fierce wind. The resultant shockwave raised a dust storm all around them, riddled with debris.

Total, deafening silence.

When the dust finally settled, Kakashi rolled off of Shisui and bent to help him sit. His uniform was in shreds over one leg, but he seemed otherwise untouched.

His eyes were on Shisui, one red and alien-looking, the other more black than grey.

"You're bleeding, Shisui-kun."

"What?" Shisui instinctively touched his neck, and then realized that the blood was streaming from his nose. "Oh. Yeah, that… happens. It's nothing."

Kakashi just gave him a solemn look as Shisui wiped uselessly at the profuse flow of blood with the back of his glove. He opened his hip pouch, and handed Shisui a roll of gauze.

When his ears finally stopped ringing, Shisui crawled around the tree—its backside nailed inch to inch with shrapnel—and looked back at the docks. The blast had formed a canyon. Very distantly, he could make out the twisted piles of steel, fringed with burning trees. Wisps of smoke and flames in the air. A thick black cloud of particulate matter roiled out from the burning wreckage, thinning as it reached the sky.

Shisui wiped dust from his scratchy forehead, and gave Kakashi a cringing, slightly bloodied grin. "Can we say 'mission accomplished' or what?"

"Yes," Kakashi said, pulling the forehead protector down over his left eye. "Let's go have a victory drink," he continued, and extended a hand to help Shisui up.

-x-

"It's not really like puppeteering," Shisui explained, waving his canteen for emphasis. "It's more like, you know, planting a seed into their mindscape. Most of the work is nudging that seed into taking roots and guiding the target to follow the impulse to its logical conclusion."

They were sitting on the edge of a pier about a mile west of the blasting site, and the wide expanse of water spread out brilliantly before them, glittering in the late afternoon sun, surface ridged with endless waves. The wind smelled of brine and moss, not smoke and burnt flesh. The sea was near.

Taking a sip of water, Shisui continued, "It's so smoothly grafted into the fabric of their thoughts that it'll seem totally rational, despite the obvious consequences. Plus, an acceptably broad range—and no eye contact necessary." He paused for effect, faintly glowing with pride. "That's the most ingenious part."

"I'm impressed," Kakashi remarked. "You obviously put a lot of effort into this."

Shisui glared at him. "So why are you using that jerkass tone?"

"I just couldn't help but notice that your technique is something of a double-edged sword."

"You mean the nosebleed? It's no big deal."

Kakashi gazed at him evenly. "You were evidently in pain after casting the jutsu on those guards. If not, I doubt you would have needed my assistance to get away."

"That's just because I've never attempted to use it on such a large scale before," Shisui justified. "I'll get used to it. I'm telling you, it's _nothing_."

"If you say so."

Shisui narrowed his eyes at Kakashi. "Are you saying _you_ wouldn't use it if you had the chance?"

"I don't know if I'd want to, even if I could," Kakashi said calmly. "For one, I don't have enough faith in my own self-control. A technique like this one has vast potential for misuse."

He didn't elucidate, but the portentous pause that followed said all that needed to be conveyed.

"Well," Shisui said sullenly. "I haven't 'misused' it yet, and I don't plan on doing it any time soon. Next thing, you're gonna tell me something like, 'With great power comes great responsibility.'"

"Isn't it true, though?" Kakashi said, like he was actually taking Shisui's sarcastic remark into consideration. "As shinobi, we're more aware of this fact than anyone."

"Why is that?"

"Look at those men back there. They had all the training and equipment that would make them terrible and efficient killing machines on the battlefield, but against us, all that power is rendered useless. What can normal men do against opponents that can enter their minds and control their very thoughts?"

Shisui leaned forward, balancing his elbows on his knees, and glared down at the water beneath his dangling feet. He was annoyed at Kakashi for the way he kept making everything a trial, but some part of him chafed from those words. He had never attempted to control such a large group of targets before, but had succeeded with only minor discomforts. Next time, how many more would he be able to snare?

But what Kakashi had said was both true and _not_ true. They were shinobi, not samurai. Honor in battle was a lofty game they couldn't afford to play.

"Like you should be lecturing me about ethics," he groused, feeing like a petulant child. "At least here's one jutsu you _can't_ copy, senpai."

"You shouldn't hold that against me," Kakashi said, truthful and easy. He leaned back, propped his leg up and slung his arm over the knee. "A gift from a good friend should not be allowed to go to waste. If nothing else, that alone is worth giving up depth perception."

_Uchiha Obito_, Shisui thought with a jerk, and then thought, really _thought_ about who it was that was sitting next to him. A list of other names came rushing through his mind like a freight train. Suddenly, he felt like a whiny loser—and a complete jackass to boot.

But it was pointless to compare losses. The years had made orphans out of the both of them, and in the line of duty, they had made a lot of other people orphans, too. That was just the way these things went.

"Hey," Shisui said, striving for a light, conciliatory tone. "I just thought of something. If I ever die, you can have one of _my_ Sharingan. Then you'll have a full set, and you'll be able to see for yourself if the, uh, potential for misuse is really as bad as you think."

Kakashi gave him a funny look. "Let us hope it doesn't come to that, Shisui-kun."

"I'm just saying," he said, shrugging. "Better you than some psychopath who'll probably just shove it in a jar or some weird place like that. It's hard enough going around with a sword over your head without having to worry about your _eyes _getting stolen after your death, you know? Might as well set up a living will while you still can."

"I'm honored," Kakashi said blandly. "But don't you think your beneficiary should be someone closer to you?"

"Can't really think of anyone. I mean, most of the people who might fit that bill wouldn't be able to handle it. Or else they kind of, you know, already have Sharingan of their own."

"I see," Kakashi said. "Were you ever part of a Genin team?"

Shisui shook his head. "Nope. Plucked straight from the Academy for the Chuunin exam and then into ANBU training."

"The youngest recruit since the squad's conception," Kakashi mused. "I remember now."

"Dad wasn't too happy about that," Shisui said, and almost checked himself. Now where was all this coming from? "Then again, if he'd had his way, I would probably have been living on some remote mountain top eating dried turnips and chanting sutra to goats."

"I take it his newfound… philosophy didn't sit well with you either," said Kakashi.

"It just wasn't for me," Shisui replied, lifting his shoulder. "I'm all about the violent, unnatural way of life."

Kakashi tilted his face to the sky. "Sometimes fathers make decisions that we as offspring find difficult to accept." No kidding. Suicide, pacifism—they could go the length of this topic if they so wished. "But we learn to live with them, and as time goes by, certain things become clear to us that were not apparent before."

Shisui sat up straight, frowning. "I know." He would never admit this to anyone under regular circumstances, but given the present company, there was no point in hiding it. "It's just one of those things you never really get used to, though. Seeing your father as something _other_ than invincible."

"There's no reason you should entirely give up that belief," Kakashi said mildly."Your father was a very powerful shinobi. I had the privilege to fight alongside him in the war."

Shisui felt a lump form in his throat.

The war. He tried to remember the war, remember what it had been like, but could only recall a select percentage. Life during wartime was a blur of terror and fatigue. The only memory he was able to call up with any clarity was the image of a weary Itachi, five-years-old and already done growing up, stumbling in through the door on shaky feet with streaks of blood-tinged dust on his face.

He had just returned from combat (_five years old_—the Council must have been out of their fucking minds), and when Shisui had gone to check him for injuries, Itachi had wrenched away from him as though from an assailant, staring out through unseeing eyes from some place deep inside, deep and interminably dark. In that moment, it was as though they were standing on opposite sides of a brown, rotten no-man's-land. Across the distance, Shisui saw Itachi running toward him, stumbling when he trod over a severed hand, flinching at the sight of an unburied head. Just as he reached the last stretch to safety, an explosion shook the ground, and Shisui couldn't hear the sound of his own scream as his best friend pitched forward in slow motion, hitting the ground in a splatter of blood…

It was like that. That was the war, for him, and at seven years old, Shisui had felt as though he had already lost Itachi before he had ever really known him.

"What was it like?" he ventured, darting careful glances at Kakashi. "You know, fighting in the war."

"You were there," Kakashi replied, predictably laconic.

Shisui shifted uncomfortably. "Yeah, but not the way you were. I wasn't put on frontlines or anything."

He hadn't tried hard enough for it—hadn't been good enough then. Not like Itachi. He wondered vaguely if that look on his face had been one of the motivating factors that had pushed Shisui into fighting to catch up with him. It'd taken a lot of blood and sweat to break down the binary that had used to differentiate them, and his stomach twisted to think that all that effort might one day come tumbling down.

"That isn't what it's about," Kakashi said, gazing off into the horizon. "Did you lose someone in the war?"

"I—"

A water-stained photograph flashed through his mind: a man and a woman and a toddler, all dark hair, pale skin, and radiant smiles. The woman was holding the boy tightly, and he had his tiny arms around her slim neck, while the man's embrace encircled them both, at once fierce and graceful with solemn pride.

The image dissolved, refocused into the face of another dark-haired boy, still round and soft with puppy fat but already set into a thousand-yard stare so piercing it cut straight to the bone.

"Yes," Shisui said at last. His voice felt heavy in his throat, consonants blocky, blurred. "I lost someone in the war."

"Then," Kakashi said simply, "you were there."

A touch of chill skimmed off the water and settled over them, bringing a fine spray of mist. The sky was beginning to empty of colors.

"Well, that's that, then," Kakashi announced, rising to his feet. He tossed his empty flask into the water, where it sank and left a whirl of ripple. "Let's go call it in, shall we? I think we'll make it back to Konoha just in time for dinner."

"What about that favor you were doing for the Hokage?" asked Shisui, glancing up at him over his shoulder. "How's that coming along?"

Kakashi appeared to be hiding a smile. "Don't worry about it, Shisui-kun," he said. "You passed."

-x-

**End of Part III

* * *

**

**Moar A/N: **Fuck, this chapter was a bitch to write. I am just not cut out for writing action sequences, how does Kishimoto do this shit? Half the people on LJ were telling me I should have had Itachi shove Yuudai's hand into the yakiniku grill in the last chapter. That would have been so badass and Tarantino.

I think someone asked about the quotes in italics: yes, they are song lyrics. Part I was Damien Rice's _The Blower's Daughter_, part II was Tom McRae's _For the Restless_, and this chapter uses The Decemberists' _The Culling of the Fold_, a sweetly macabre little song that I highly recommend.


	4. Part IV

**Title: **The Colder Water (4/6)

**Series:** Naruto

**Pairing:** Shisui/Itachi

**Summary:** The devil is in the details. Shisui. Itachi. A sorta love story.

**Disclaimer:** Naruto is the property of Kishimoto Masashi.

**Notes:** Attention duelists! I would like to draw everyone's attention to the beautiful array of illustrations currently accruing on my profile page. If you look at the notations, you may notice that the artist responsible for bringing this incandescence to life is none other than **coincident**, otherwise known as THE BEST ITA/SHI AUTHOR EVER. Other girls' milkshake may bring more boys to the yard, but I clearly win the most cake for using my vixen wiles to entice a writer ten times my caliber away from her ItaHina/ancestuous leanings over to my sad little OTP. Yes, yes, you all hate me so much right now, I understand. I may be a hackwriter, but my whorish talents are peerless.

* * *

**The Colder Water**

**Part IV**

-x-

_All the white horses have gone ahead_  
_I tell you that I'll always want you near_  
_You say that things change, my dear_

-x-

Since the clause that Shisui had metaphorically signed his name to clearly stipulated that he was to chaperone one eight-year-old that Sunday morning, he was understandably confused to find _three_ wandering into the prearranged rendezvous.

"What are _they_ doing here?" he asked. "I didn't know you were bringing guests."

"I didn't," Sasuke hissed. It was barely mid-morning and his scowl was already epic enough to make birds fall out of the sky. "They just followed me, alright? And here, hold this."

Shisui stared at the item in his hands—a rectangular box, wrapped in a navy blue furoshiki with a white hem. "What's this?"

"My bento. Kaasan made it." Sasuke placed another box on top of the first, this one encased in a dark red cloth. "And here's yours."

There were just no words to adequately encapsulate the stupidity of the situation. Did the delusional brat think this was some kind of _picnic_?

A loud yelp drew Shisui's attention back to the unexpected additions to the day's outing. They were two in number—a boy and a girl, seemingly caught in some kind of violent tug-of-war session. Shisui waited for an introduction, but Sasuke was studiously ignoring their existence, face pinched in a waspish expression. This kind of self-absorption couldn't possibly be taught; it _had_ to be genetics.

At his approach, the two struggling pipsqueaks froze, and immediately jumped away from each other. Girl Pipsqueak frantically began smoothing down her clothes, flushing a garish pink that made her cheeks indistinguishable from her hair, but the boy just glared up at Shisui with a narrowed, challenging look, like he was expecting a full-on attack and wanted to be as prepared for it as possible.

"Hey," Shisui said, taking in the bright hair and bluebell eyes. "I remember you from the other day."

The boy blinked. "Really?" he chirped happily, like this was the greatest thing in the world—and maybe it was, because the wary expression snuffled off his face, replaced by pure non-concentrated cockiness. "Well, of course you do! Everyone remembers the great Uzumaki Naruto!"

He broke into a loppy grin, and Shisui found himself smiling back, half-reflexively. Naruto's smile was the kind that dragged it out of you. "Okay, then," he said, raising an eyebrow. "In other news, I'm Shisui, Sasuke's cousin." Or something. "And who do we have here?"

The only female member of their group finally stopped fretting with the hem of her skirt, and looked up with a shining, guileless smile—like she hadn't had her fist lodged in the side of Naruto's head only a minute prior. "My name is Haruno Sakura," she said politely. "It's a pleasure to meet you, Shisui-san."

Shisui liked her immediately.

"I'm sorry for intruding on you," Sakura went on in a rush. "It's just that Naruto had to start following Sasuke-kun—" Here, she made a strangely feral noise in Naruto's general direction. "—and I tried to stop him but he's a stubborn idiot so here we are."

"No harm done," Shisui mollified. "The more the merrier, right?" This was the diametric opposite of what he'd been thinking up to that moment, but Shisui had always been one of _those_ boys, the ones who were terminally incapable of saying 'no' to a girl.

"Can we get on with this already?" Sasuke sniped. He had already removed his shirt, and was going through his warm-up routine, which mostly involved making a travesty out of the quad stretch.

Naruto swelled up like a puffer fish. "That's what I've been waiting for," he shouted, "I'm going to kick your _ass_ at swimming, loser," proving beyond a reasonable doubt that he was one of those _other_ boys, the ones who showed affection by dipping girls' pigtails into ink. In that sense, Shisui thought with a smirk, Sasuke should be quite flattered.

"This place is so beautiful," Sakura said in a hushed voice. "I never even knew there was a lake here."

"Not a lot of people do," Shisui told her.

The lake in question was little more than a glorified pond. A narrow wooded path diverted from the main road at an angle that made it easily overlooked, but if you knew where to turn, you would follow that densely overgrown trail to find it giving over to this perfect little cove, hemmed in by tall trees. Glassy green water soft and sweet under the bright sun. Gnats and dragonflies skating the willow-swept surface. Hanging moss draping from the branches of giant oaks.

"In fact," Shisui added with a faint smile, "this is where _I_ first learned how to swim."

Sasuke said," You?" at the same time that Naruto said, "When was that?"

"A long time ago," Shisui answered. "Everybody's got to start somewhere."

Nearly a decade to the day, and nothing about this place seemed to have changed. Even the Mandarin ducks squabbling in the cool shadows formed between clusters of mossy boulders might have been idling there all along, unbridled by time. Nostalgia crashed against the washline of his mind. Shisui turned from Sakura and the ugly brawl rapidly brewing between Naruto and Sasuke, and made his way over to the largest willow tree that gnarled over the surface of the lake. He parted the curtain of leaves, and got to his knees in the loamy earth to inspect the base of the tree.

There, carved into the warped, graying bark with a six-year-old's first kunai—the same kunai lost in a raid toward the end of the war—was a faded line of text. In slanting, barely legible hiragana, it read:

SHISUI, KING OF THE UNIVERSE.

And beneath that, in a much steadier hand:

TADAHIRO, FATHER OF THE KING.

-x-

It was that second year after his mom's death, when the war had fallen into a temporary lull and his father had started to pull himself out of his head a little, plastered up his wounds and regained a trace or two of the man he had been before. That had still been a couple of years away from his love affair with pacifism and the natural way of life, back when he'd still remembered how to lean on other people, on his friendship with the man who would soon be the Fourth Hokage—and on his son, who had been so grateful, just so fucking _grateful _to be given the chance.

He remembered this place, alright. He remembered summer days. He remembered skipping school a lot, willfully allowing his class ranks to slip, slip, slip, because when you were six and a half you couldn't be fucked to give a shit about marksmanship and chakra control, not when there was sky and sun and water and your father's long-absent smile to be had. They could have kicked him out, branded him a failure for all he'd cared, because for a little while back there, Shisui had had his dad back.

Other Uchiha children were taught the Goukakyu no Jutsu as a rite of passage. For Shisui, it was the breaststroke, the front crawl, the butterfly, the backstroke—and a few other less… practical styles, like the Caterpillar Crawl, the use of which on unwary children should seriously be prohibited by some kind of official protocol. At this point in his life, he was pretty certain nothing short of developing cerebral palsy could make him vulnerable to what his father had termed 'slow, sucking, agonizing watery death'.

And that was always the first thing you learned about swimming: you must not fear the water.

Not, he reflected, that he'd ever had a reason to, not with his father's careful hands guiding his way, firm beneath his sternum, soft and encouraging between his shoulder blades. A week into the lessons, and there had been a challenge on a simmering afternoon: a race to the opposite shore. His dad had set the pace, slow and lenient, but even then Shisui had had to forfeit. They'd climbed onto one of the warm boulders, and when the sand and sludge had settled enough, the water at the edge had become so clear you could see all the way down to the bottom. Bodies of fish thick in the cool depths, raising little clouds of sand.

Something like a whir had kindled in Shisui's stomach, and when his dad had said, "Go ahead, take a look," he had ducked his head underwater, found himself face to face with a mottled trout. He'd held its bulging eyes in a staring contest, tracking their sluggish movements, until: a flash, a metallic gleam of colors across his vision. One beak, two sleek, folded wings—a male Mandarin duck, a _yuan yang_ gliding gracefully toward the pebbled bed, the bright orange sails at its streamlined back rippling like war banners.

He had sputtered to the surface then, mum with excitement, and seen his father lifting his head from the rock, face cracked in an easy smile. The tip of his sunburnt nose, dotted with sweat. His hands that had felt like tree bark and smelled of fountain pen ink. His dad. His dad with the sun behind his smile.

There was that to remember—that, and much, much more, each memory a pinprick burnt into the tips of Shisui's fingers. The taste of wild mulberry, picked straight from the branches that lined the path. The wistfulness that had touched his father's mouth every time a pair of _yuan yang_ had taken flight into the softening sky. How they'd emerged from those sun-seared weeks with hair bleached a dark chestnut from the relentless summer glare, their skin so brown and coarse they'd barely resembled Uchiha anymore—and maybe that had been the point. Yes, maybe that had been the point.

But the following year, when Shisui had turned seven, some asshole somewhere in the universe had decided to stoke the dying embers of the war. On a day just like any other, that damn demon fox had risen out of the earth, and the nightmare had started anew.

-x-

It turned out that Naruto, despite all his chutzpa, could only swim in a kind of clumsy dog paddle, which, pitched against Sasuke's drowning-cat breaststroke, made for the saddest swimming meet this side of the Fire Nation. From his vantage point, stilted on the surface of the lake, Shisui watched with escalating despair as the two of them floundered and flopped their way across the water, ignoring most of his instructions in favor of looking like complete idiots.

Shisui could have lived his entire life without enjoying the benefits of this charming adventure in childcare. He would have been happy, too. He was going to kill Itachi _dead_ for inflicting this upon him. Any moment now, the sheer amount of second-hand embarrassment he was experiencing would prove fatal—and as if being total failures wasn't enough, the little asswipes couldn't seem to stop trying to sabotage each other. Each cunning attempt at jostling, elbowing, dunking et al only resulted in one or both of them taking in a mouthful of water and having to be hauled disgracefully back to land.

"You two are special snowflakes, alright," Shisui said hopelessly. "Stay in the shallows," he added as a warning, and began walking back toward shore, where he could see Sakura perched on top of a large rock sticking halfway out into the water, legs hugged close to her chest.

"Hey," Shisui said when he reached her, tilting his head slightly. "How're you doing over here?"

"I'm fine, thanks," Sakura said, picking shyly at her striped tights. She glanced at Shisui's feet, perfectly balanced on the undisturbed water, and looked up at him with a smile. "That looks like a lot of fun."

Shisui blinked. "You guys haven't learned Suimen Hoko no Gyo yet?"

"No," said Sakura. "Iruka-sensei told us that level of chakra control won't be covered until near graduation."

It had never ceased to amaze him how much easier kids who grew up in peacetime had it. At Sakura's age, Shisui had been on the cusp of the Chuunin exam—had already learned firsthand the best and most efficient way to kill a man and dispose of the evidence. Coming back from that first assignment, his dad had met him at the door, smelling of sesame oil and incense. He'd handed Shisui a plate of stir-fry—tofu, cashew nuts, and some shapeless greenish junks—and asked, "What was it like?"

"It was easy," Shisui remembered saying.

He'd scooped a spoonful of steaming marinated tofu into his mouth, and looked up to see his father's expression closing like a book, disappointment ossifying his face even as he had turned from his son.

But Shisui had no desire to develop a complex over half-forgotten memories, so he shelved them, and gave Sakura an encouraging smile. "It's all about surface tension. You know, if your control is precise enough, you can walk on snow, too." It was pathetic and probably creepy on some level, but he just couldn't help showing off a little for her, because she was pretty and he was an idiot.

Sakura just nodded at him vaguely, and continued to stare at the far side of the lake, where Sasuke and Naruto were still splashing around noisily. Her expression radiated barely concealed yearning.

"Sure you don't want to join them?" Shisui asked. "I don't mind one more student joining the roster."

"Oh no," Sakura said quickly. "I know how to swim, it's just…" She colored brilliantly. "If Sasuke-kun doesn't, I don't want him to think that I…"

"Huh," Shisui said, quirking his eyebrow. Maybe Yuu was right—there really was no accounting for taste.

He hopped up beside her on the sun-baked rock, and reached for the bento Sasuke's mother had prepared for him. "Let's see what we've got here," Shisui said, unknotting the furoshiki with a kind of manic glee. His one-true-love-and-future-wife she may not be, but Mikoto-sama could still pack a mind-altering lunch.

He lifted the—black, lacquered, elegantly etched—lid of the bento box to find a medley of color-coordinated, seasonally-appropriate fares. An array of fan-shaped sushi, a row of perfectly spherical croquettes, a fresh green salad playfully dashed with ginger-soy dressing, and—_jackpot_—two giant pink mochi, lightly dusted with katakuriko, sakura leaves pressed in exacting angles. Many a time Shisui recalled having to suppress the urge to snatch one of these from Itachi's hand while it had been en route to his mouth, but thinking about Itachi in conjunction with mouths made Shisui's lips tingle in a weird way, so he didn't, just speared a croquette with a skewer and offered it to Sakura.

By this time, Sasuke and Naruto had trudged their way over, guided to food by some innate male instinct. The contents of Sasuke's bento, Shisui noted, were much the same as his, only in place of the mochi there was bizarrely a fat, squat tomato—which was the first thing that Naruto's greedy little hand groped for.

"Don't eat that!" Sasuke squawked, snatching it out of his hand. "Kaasan had to have that special-ordered—it costs five-thousand yen!"

"It costs _how _much?" Shisui boggled. "That's ridiculous. Was it hand-cultivated by wood elves who work only by moonlight? It's a _tomato._"

Sakura started giggling, while Sasuke made a face that either meant he was annoyed or painfully constipated. He was horribly uptight for someone his age. Shisui chalked it up to the inbreeding, but realized that didn't speak particularly well for him either. Given his behavior in the past couple of days—and he could literally _feel_ the flush rioting down his jaw line—Shisui was clearly no less a victim to that eccentric and highly messed-up gene pool. God, it was like their entire clan was actively shouting for the hand of natural selection to strike them down.

After a moment's deliberation, Sasuke picked up the plastic knife that came with his utensils packet, and carefully sliced into his tomato. "Here," he said, holding out one of the ugly halves to Naruto.

"I don't want your stinkin' fruit," Naruto said, scandalized.

"Fine," Sasuke said loftily. "More for me. And it's not a fruit. It's a vegetable, dumbass."

"I knew that!" Naruto yelled, tanned cheeks going a fetching shade of mauve. "I knew it was a vegi—vegetable. Give it to me, you greedy jerk!"

Sasuke smirked at him. "I thought you didn't want it," he said, eyes huge.

This was evidently going to devolve into another kindergarten pissing contest. Shisui was just about to roll his eyes and tell both of them to shut up when he felt a chill slither up the length of his spine.

Something was lurking in the woods behind them. A chakra signature, tenuous and strange, here one moment and gone the next. The odd thing was—and this was the part that filled his veins with ice and made the fine hair spring up at the back of his neck—the flare of energy that he perceived now and again seemed to indicate a _colossal_ power, a force that should be impossible to mask with such immaculateness.

"Stay here," Shisui muttered to the kids, and vaulted himself off the rock. He followed the gossamer trail into the shaded grove leading out of the clearing, stepping as lightly as possible so as not even to break a twig. Dappled light, shadows cool on his face. That queer specter was all around, everywhere at once, twining through the brambles, flitting between the leaves, and—_damn it_—he'd lost it again.

Just as Shisui was beginning to think he'd hallucinated the whole thing, his mind was assaulted by a sudden heaviness. A dark, oppressive fog was pressing down on him, and immediately his guards were up because he had recognized this encroachment for what it was—a genjutsu attack. He had to…

"Shisui-san!"

Shisui blinked. His head was clear. No dark weight, no genjutsu—it was like it'd never been there at all. Was he having some kind of dementia episode?

He turned, and saw Sakura's troubled expression."What is it? I thought I told you to stay by the lake."

"It's just…" she said, and trailed off, glancing nervously over her shoulder. Shisui followed the arc of her cheek to see—oh, what the hell?—Naruto caught in Sasuke's headlock, teetering on the edge of the rock. The invective left his mouth at the same time that they overbalanced and tumbled into the water below with a loud splash, still grappling.

It wasn't until much later, when the sun had shed most of its vehemence and the day was soft, did Shisui realize that he had spent an entire day in Konoha, neither training nor working, and more importantly, had not totally hated it. The frantic need for kinesis, for distance had temporarily left him—and along with it, the storm in his head. He was, strangely enough, _happy_.

It wasn't about Sasuke's swimming prowess (which was terrible and kept getting worse), or even any particular thing that had transpired that day (though he'd rather enjoyed boxing Naruto's ear after fishing him out of the lake for the umpteenth time). There was just something simple, something intrinsically uncomplicated to this languid rhythm, a kind of life Shisui had never even thought possible for someone like him to have.

But why not? He was going to be a Jounin in a few months, and while he had no real complaint about his time in the ANBU, he had never believed that it would be forever. Other people left—Kakashi had left. Not that Shisui would readily follow in the footstep of _that_ moral degenerate or anything, but there would come a time to move on.

(_"If I were you, Shisui, I would take this time to take stock of my situation and think about what I might want to do next with my life."_)

What, indeed. After wartime regulations had been lifted, Shisui thought idly, they had pushed back the minimum age limit for graduation from the Academy. In a couple of years, kids like Sasuke, Naruto, and Sakura would become freshly minted shinobi, and be unleashed kunai-first upon the unwary world. There would have to be someone there to curb the collateral damage and, well, it wouldn't be so bad. It didn't have to be _forever_, but maybe… for awhile…

_Maybe for awhile_, Shisui told himself, holding Sakura's hands as she took her first faltering step onto the glittering surface of the water.

-x-

"You sure have interesting choice in friends," Shisui remarked later that day, walking Sasuke home after dropping Naruto and Sakura off at their respective residences.

"They're not my friends," said Sasuke.

"Why not?" Shisui asked. "You get along well enough. Don't you want to make friends?"

"Not at school," Sasuke said, wrinkling his nose. "I'm there to learn how to be a good ninja, not to mess around."

"I met your brother at the Academy," Shisui pointed out.

Hearing this, Sasuke furrowed his eyebrows thoughtfully. "Are you and nii-san very good friends?"

"No, I like hanging around aloof cold fish and babysitting their punk brothers for no reason," Shisui said insincerely. "_Of course_ we're good friends. If I weren't such a good friend, I would have let you swallow at least twice as much water today."

Sasuke did not look repentant, but instead just rolled his eyes. "Whatever you say, _onee-san_," he said, sotto voce.

"What did you just call me?" Shisui asked, blanching. The little spawn sniggered at him. Shisui slapped the back of his head, which earned him another scowl.

"Do you know when nii-san might be coming back?" Sasuke asked, suspiciously pouty. "Father told me yesterday that he wasn't happy with my kunai-throwing."

"Soon, probably," Shisui demurred. A strange knot started to form inside his chest, apropos of absolutely nothing. "Anyway, don't stress out too much about that marksmanship thing. Even your brother had difficulties with it at first."

"_What?_"

"When he first started out learning how to use kunai," Shisui said in a conspiratorial voice, "Itachi had this serious problem with adjusting windage. Our first week at the Academy, he threw high _all the time_."

Sasuke's eyes widened into dinner plates. "He _did?_"

"_Oh yeah_," Shisui said, chuckling. It felt strangely exhilarating, like he was disseminating apocryphal gospel. "I remember this one time, our teacher—this mental case named Saitou—he used to hold the target right up to his chest because that was supposed to give us 'incentive to aim true' or something. Whatever. The point is, Itachi's kunai sailed straight up, speared through his _toupee_ and nailed it to a _tree_."

Sasuke made a choked, hysterical noise in his throat, which almost made Shisui laugh too, because seriously, this story never got old.

"So, as you can probably imagine," he went on, "the entire class was in a riot. Saitou was _furious_. And your brother—well, here he was, this pudgy little four-year-old, towered over by all his classmates, and this giant of a bald psycho was about to go on the warpath all over his ass. And then he went and broke out this blankest of blank expressions and asked, all politely, if he could have another go. I almost _died_."

"I can't believe nii-san used to be bad at throwing _kunai_," Sasuke whispered in wide-eyed horror. His face held the look of a person whose carefully constructed world had just crumbled all around him.

Shisui laughed. "Oh, he got it sorted out in a week or so." Or, you know, three days. "His aim's been true ever since—but man, the _look_ on Saitou-sensei's face. I'm never gonna forget that day. Just classic."

In reality, Shisui would never forget that day because, apparently, something about that zany incident had made him a little crazy too—such that when he'd seen three of his douchier classmates bearing down on his young relative afterschool, Shisui had not hesitated to gallantly throw down his shoulder bag like some kind of comic book hero and run up to get into all of their faces. This act of misplaced chivalry had earned him no less than three split knuckles and one brutal cut to the lips—and a once-in-a-lifetime friendship, nine years old and counting. All in all, not a bad bargain. At least he'd blacked all of their eyes before going down; for the first time in his life, he'd gone home with a story to tell.

It wasn't that Shisui could see something in Itachi that other people couldn't. The only real difference between him and other people was that Shisui didn't give up.

"Wow," Sasuke said, hushed, and didn't even try to accuse Shisui of feeding him total crap. It made the breath expand inside Shisui's chest, knowing that he was still in a position to impart to Sasuke pieces of his brother that he hadn't known existed. He wanted to tell Sasuke to hide them away and keep them safe, but figured that, judging by the awed expression on his face, that pretty much went without saying.

They came within sight of the Uchiha Compound. Shisui was about to hand Sasuke the empty bento boxes and go his way, when he saw someone walking frantically toward them. It was Sasuke's mother.

"Sasuke, please come with me," Mikoto said urgently, face pale. She seized Sasuke by the arm and began to forcibly drag him toward the compound. The wildness of her movements startled Shisui, because not only did she completely ignore his existence, not even her son's yelps of pain and protest seemed to register.

"Mikoto-sama," Shisui said, hurrying after her. "Your bento boxes…"

Mikoto swiveled around, her lovely eyes wide and scattered—suspiciously red-rimmed. She blinked a few times in rapid succession, as though trying to get rid of a particle of dust, before her entire face clouded like a pall. "Shisui-kun," she said, voice dense, "you should… you should go home."

With that, she rushed off, with Sasuke barely hanging on to her sleeve, tossing freaked-out looks over his shoulder at Shisui. He felt confused and strangely desolate for a moment, but a moment only, because in the next he had become aware of the commotion brewing beyond the compound's gate.

People were taking to the street in droves, melting out of the buildings and alleys, an unheralded foot drill. His clansmen, most of whom he recognized as members of the Military Police, were turning Main Street into a sea of black hair and dull green fatigues, and the rip current was carrying them toward the heart of the compound—to the Police Headquarters.

Shisui watched the display in bewilderment. Something hinky was definitely going on here. Was the clan going to war?

He jogged ahead, slipping into that moving stream. He eeled his way through, and zeroed in on the first familiar face he saw. "Inabi-san, what's with the turnout? Where's everyone going?"

The man gave Shisui a shrug. "I'm not sure myself. It's something to do with the Chief's son, I heard."

"_What?_" He couldn't possibly be talking about Sasuke. "Something's happened to Itachi?"

Inabi opened his mouth to say something, but he had already slipped from Shisui's mind. His feet were already beating pavement, winding through the throng of men, until the gaunt skeleton of the Military Police Headquarters loomed up before him. Someone here had to have the answer he was seeking, and Shisui spotted him almost immediately, standing at the top of the steps.

"Yasuo-san!"

At the sound of his name, Yuudai's father turned around. When he saw Shisui, Yasuo's face caved into a grave expression, dark brows a troubled ridge over hardened eyes.

"Can you tell me what's going on?" Shisui asked, taking the steps two at a time. "Inabi-san told me this has something to do with Itachi and—"

"Shisui," Yasuo cut him off in a low voice, fraught with urgency. "You can't be here."

"What do you mean by that?" Shisui puzzled, but before he could frame a better inquiry, Yuudai had stepped out from behind his father. The ugly scowl on his face informed Shisui that forgive and forget was probably not what he had in mind.

"You'd better get out of here," Yuudai gritted out. "It's not your place to meddle in the clan's business anymore."

"Why not?" Shisui snapped. "I'm still an Uchiha, aren't I?"

"Only in name," Yuudai threw back viciously, lip curling.

"Be quiet, Yuudai," Yasuo ordered, lashing out like a whip. To Shisui, he said, "I don't have time to explain this to you, Shisui, but you really must leave. You're not allowed—"

"No," a deep voice said.

Fugaku appeared in the entrance of the building, regarding them with a solemn expression. Immediately, Yasuo went silent, Yuudai looked down at his feet nervously, and Shisui scowled.

"Let him stay," Fugaku said, talking about Shisui like he wasn't even there. "The enemies have made their first move, Yasuo. It's high time we began discussing that matter I spoke of the other day."

His Chief Deputy nodded curtly. Shisui boggled to himself. _Enemies?_

"It looks like everyone has arrived," Fugaku continued. He still hadn't spared Shisui so much as a sideway glance. "Let's get the meeting underway."

-x-

Shisui could only count a handful of times in his life when he had been inside the Headquarters of the Military Police—mostly due to his own avoidance—but he was certain he had never seen the place like _this_. As the members of the Corps filled out the chairs lining the walls of the main conference hall, the thick tension that descended upon the room gave Shisui the impression he was sitting in a war room the night before a major battle. Quietly, he took a seat near the door, and waited for the meeting to begin.

The soft undercurrent of murmurs quickly subsided as Fugaku strode to the front of the room. "Let's get started," he said without preamble. "I've called this meeting today to address a number of recent developments that our intelligence network has brought to my attention."

He paused, gazing around the room. In the ensuing silence, Shisui caught himself unconsciously leaning forward in his seat; a number of men around him were doing the same.

"My eldest son, Itachi, was recently embedded with Root shinobi for an undisclosed assignment," Fugaku said finally. "Today, I received word that the Root squad has returned to Konoha—but Itachi is MIA."

All at once, every person in the room began whispering urgently to each other, so that Shisui's gasp of surprise was completely drowned out by the mingled voices. Why hadn't anyone else noticed that the ground had gone out from under his feet? His grip slackened around the bento boxes he was still carrying, allowing them to clatter to the floor.

When he came to attention again, Fugaku was calling for silence. His eyes met Shisui's across the room for the first time—a strange, purposeful light flaring in their dark depths.

"Shisui," Fugaku said simply. "Please come forward."

Shisui jumped up from his seat, and practically tripped his way to the front, feeling every pair of eyes in the room tracking his steps. The heaviness of their gaze barely registered on his mind, which was spinning violently in a maelstrom of horrifying thoughts. _MIA. MIA. What the fuck did he mean by MIA?_

It was dark in the conference hall, barely a few lamps lit, and no windows. The air in the room pulsed with a trapped heat, heavy and lingering, holding itself aloft, drawing beads of sweat from men's brows.

"I trust," Fugaku said rigidly, "you have by now heard of your cousin Yuudai's recent suspension from the ANBU."

Shisui frowned, and tipped his head in Yuu's direction. "I thought you resigned?"

"More like I was forced to," Yuudai spat. "Honorable discharge my ass. They wanted me out."

"Yuudai's situation is not an isolated case," said Fugaku. "Most of the Uchiha who held official ranks outside of the Military Police Corps have been stripped of their duties. Currently, you and Itachi remain the only members of our clan still in the employ of Konoha."

Shisui stared back at him. "What does that have anything to do with Itachi being missing?"

For no clear reason, his mind drifted back to that December day on the mountainside. Shisui knew, even if he had never been told, that after he had collapsed, Itachi had brought him back to Konoha by himself. It was a ten-mile journey back to the village, and by the time they'd reached the hospital, Itachi must have smelled like copper all over, like dirt and snowswept mountain air. It would not have been the first time he had let himself be covered in Shisui's blood. What had his face looked like? Had it been pale? Had it shown desperation? Probably not. What would Shisui's face look like if—when—_if_ it came to be his turn?

Fugaku's mouth pulled into a firm line. "Perhaps we should start at the beginning. You've not been made aware of this, but for the last several months, Itachi has been entrusted with a very important mission, the outcome of which could determine the survival of the Uchiha Clan."

Shisui raised both of his eyebrows. "Our survival's in danger now? Boy have _I_ been out of the loop."

It cut no ice with Fugaku, who pointedly chose to ignore his interjection. "Up until recently," he went on, "Itachi has performed his duties admirably. However, we now have reasons to believe that he may have strayed—or rather, have been _led_ astray from his path."

The wrinkles on his forehead seemed to be folding in on themselves as he spoke, and on normal days Shisui would have cracked a mental joke about chronic constipation, but today he just squared his jaw and listened. His heart raced. There was a dull roaring inside him, not in his ears or in his chest, but in every vein and bone of his body, in every singing nerve.

"The time has come for something to be done about this," Fugaku continued. "Someone needs to be placed in a position where they can monitor Itachi and report back to us any signs of aberration. Due to the circumstance, and the… unique relationship you have with Itachi, it has been decided that you, Shisui, are the best candidate for the job."

"You want me to spy on him?" Shisui said, almost stunned with disbelief.

"There is no need to take offense," said Fugaku. "Surely you can see that this is for Itachi's own good. He is likely not himself aware of the gravity of his actions. As someone who calls himself his friend, you should be willing to help guide him back to the right path."

Something changed abruptly in his demeanor, the sweeping of a dark tide. "Your father," Fugaku said, in a strained, obviously affected tone, "was an honorable man."

"Please, Fugaku-sama," Shisui said, barely keeping the anger out of his voice. "I'd really rather not hear you talk about my dad. Let's just stay on topic, if you don't mind."

"Very well," said Fugaku. His unflappability was almost eerie. "What I mean to say is, up until now, you have made a point to stay out of our clan's business. 'Out of the loop', as you put it. In that sense, one could almost say that you're approaching this situation as a relative outsider."

"What situation? You still haven't told me what any of this is supposed to be about?"

Inside, he was gnarled with impatience. Talking in riddles wasn't getting him any closer to finding out what had happened to Itachi.

Fugaku didn't seem to heed him. "I have always wondered," he went on as if uninterrupted. "With your ability, why have you never considered joining the Military Police?"

"Policing people isn't exactly my thing," Shisui sniped.

"Fair enough," Fugaku said. "Regardless of your preferences, your talents and accomplishments have not gone unnoticed. You are truly a credit to the Uchiha name—and what is more, we are given to understand that the Hokage himself holds you in considerable regard."

He paused, and leveled Shisui with a narrow-eyed gaze. "But you should know even good hounds are butchered when hares run scarce. Outside the enclave of the clan's influence, you must never let down your guards. Your father learned this lesson the hard way."

A bright red film settled over Shisui's vision. He wouldn't be at all surprised if his Sharingan had activated themselves. He took an angry step forward, fists curled tight at his sides. "I thought I told you not to talk about my fathe—"

"Shisui," Yasuo said warningly, rising from his seat. "Remember where you are. Don't overstep your boundaries."

His face softened fractionally as he continued, "Tadahiro was _my_ friend, as you well know. He might have had his differences with the clan, but I'm sure he would have wanted the best for you."

His voice was mild, deliberate. Not unkind, but the undertone was clear.

Family was an obligation, not a choice.

But that was just it: Shisui _did_ have a choice.

In a rending flash, a ball of lightning at the mast of a ship, Shisui finally understood the decisions his father had made all those years ago. He had made the conscious choice to step away from the clan, to renounce the safety of their protection—and in doing so, had freed his family from the yoke of their dogma. It could not have been easy; children of the Uchiha name had the clan's ideologies beat into them from an early age, and if Shisui had grown up under that unrelenting shadow, he would have yielded without question, would have quickly capitulated to the fallacious call of duty. It would never even have occurred to him that he had a choice.

The ultimate measure of a man lay in the way he rose up to challenges. You had to be bold. You had to make the hard choices. You had to jump in the cold water. At twenty-eight, his dad had stood where Shisui stood now and made the decision to turn his back on everything he had been raised to believe. He had walked away from the acceptance of his family, acceptance that, once lost, could never be reclaimed, and today, just shy of sixteen, Shisui was going to make that same decision.

He had never felt more like his father's son.

"I don't want to know," Shisui said flatly. He was angry and he was tired and this was wasting time. "I don't want to know anything about your secret business, or about whatever special task you gave Itachi, and I'm definitely not going to _tattle_ on him for your benefit. Just tell me where he is."

If he ever saw Itachi again—_when_ he saw Itachi again, Shisui resolved to take him by the shoulders and shake him senseless, yelling: "I chose you, jackass. I gave it all up for you—you, you, _you_. So prove yourself worth it, drop all this crazy bullshit and stop making me want to rip all my hair out."

Fugaku gave him an unforgiving scowl. "Have you not been listening all this time?" he said sternly. "We do not currently have any information on Itachi's whereabouts—or do you not comprehend the meaning of Missing In Action?"

Shisui glared at him. "Then we're done here." He marched to the door without a second glance. "If you'll excuse me, I'm going to see some people who might actually have some answers to give."

"Shisui, wait," Yasuo called after him. "You have to consider everything that's at stake here. Being in the know has its benefits—benefits that perhaps you haven't yet realized."

"What do you mean, Yasuo-san?" Shisui asked, halting just inside the doorway. "What benefits?"

"For one thing, I'd wager you have not yet learned about the Military Police's findings based on your father's autopsy."

That had Shisui's attention. "What findings?" he repeated, low and dangerous, and felt the pain he'd thought blunted erupt, hot and profuse.

He kept telling himself that he was over it, had been telling himself that for almost a year now, but every time the issue was brought up, it felt more and more like the deep cuts he thought had closed over were not so at all. Instead of forming scar tissue, they had simply left him with a mess of scabs, black and festering and begging to be picked at, impeding the healing process with their very existence.

"There is credible evidence to suggest that your father's murder was an inside job," Yasuo told him. "We suspect that the enemies who are after the secrets of the Sharingan may lie within the very walls of this village."

His words were like a blade of ice, piercing the base of Shisui's skull. He felt suddenly suffocated, bottlenecked, all the oxygen squeezed from his lungs.

"That's enough, Yasuo," Fugaku said calmly. "Shisui has already made his position clear. Given his character, I do not think anything you say will be sufficient to change his mind."

But the look on his face was one of challenge. The sliver of teeth wedging out a new moon, daring Shisui to recant his former declaration, recant or walk away from the only chance to get to the bottom of his father's death.

Shisui walked.

-x-

"How did you learn of this so quickly?" Sarutobi demanded, looking as though he had been struck a critical blow. He had not stopped pacing since Shisui had burst into his office earlier, Mamiya's shrieking protests clinging to his heels.

"Directly from the home front," Shisui said tartly. "By the way, sir, congratulations. Your wish came true, because the clan is _definitely_ not very happy with me right now."

The Hokage stopped in his track, and slanted Shisui a guarded look. "So they know."

"Are they not supposed to?" Shisui asked. "He's the heir apparent to the clan leadership. I'm sure they must have some kind of stake in his well-being." He hoped.

Sarutobi removed the pipe from his lips, worried at the mouthpiece with his thumb and forefinger. Presently, he gave a deep sigh. "This is not how I wished for things to turn out," he said quietly, and resumed his frenetic pacing. By the time this day was through, there was going to be a deep trench in the floor where his feet had trodden. "I wanted to try to—well, it doesn't matter now."

There was hidden weight here, sunken rocks, but Shisui had no time to bother with that just yet. "And another thing," he barreled on. "I heard you fired all the Uchiha who weren't with the Military Police. So why haven't I been given the boot yet? Are you keeping me around so you can send me off on some suicide mission like you did with Itachi?"

"Itachi was not sent on a suicide mission," Sarutobi said bluntly, and looked Shisui hard in the face. "And you have not been relieved of your duties because you haven't done anything to warrant it. Don't give me a reason to change my mind."

Shisui knitted his brows together. "Are you implying that the other clansmen _have_ done something?"

There was a long silence before Sarutobi met his eyes again, and as he did so, the crosshatched severity of his expression fractured, like a troubled sky breaking at the edge of a storm. The sight of it almost knocked the breath from Shisui's ribs, fear flooding in like the sea gushing into a broken hull. He knew that look: a look almost akin to pity.

"Shisui," Sarutobi said, voice grave. The shadows in his eyes seemed to multiply by the second. "If you want this old man's advice, I suggest that you leave Konoha for awhile. We just signed a treaty with the Hidden Stone. If you want, I can arrange for you to accompany the diplomatic delegation to Iwagakure for a six-month post."

Shisui narrowed his eyes. "Why would I want to do that?"

Instead of answering him, the Hokage turned and made his way to the open window. He braced his hands along the ledge, the set of his sloping shoulders drawn taut like a bowstring, radiating unhappiness. From this window, they had a clear view of the Hokage Monument, and Shisui knew that Sandaime's eyes were strained upon those chipped and weathered faces. He vaguely wondered if Sarutobi had ever found any answers there.

"This village is about to undergo a great change," Sarutobi said at last, voice dangerously full, welling up from some place deep within. "You should know that there can be no change without a fire."

Shisui blinked, and saw Itachi's face floating before his mind's eye, solemn and preternaturally white, washed like candle wax under a spill of yellow light. _"Have you ever wondered how far you would go to keep the life you have from changing?"_

"What does that even mean?" he said, taking a deliberate step toward the window. "Hokage-sama, just tell me what's going on. _Please_."

Sarutobi shook his head firmly. "Believe me when I say that I have your best interest at heart. It would be better for you not to know about this."

Shisui clenched his fists so hard the blunt nails broke the skin of his palms. He had nothing but the deepest respect for Sandaime, but he was sick and tired of being told what was supposedly 'best' for him.

"If you won't tell me what's going on, can you at least let me know where Itachi was being sent?" he asked, seething with the desperation that rolled off of him in waves. "Why did Root want him to participate in their assignment? What kind of assignment was it anyway?"

He had wasted time, so much time, why had he wasted so much time? Several months, Fugaku had said. Several months Itachi had been embroiled in this, caught in the grinding teeth of trouble, and Shisui had had no fucking idea. He hadn't been there, or else had kept getting distracted, even as the glaring signs had come pouring in through the cracks. All these dark channels, all the ceaseless undertows beneath his very feet, and still he had failed to notice the sea change

"I have nothing more to say that would be of use to you," said the Hokage. His face, when he turned to Shisui, looked the color of bad pearl. His lips pressed together into a thin, pale line—all the answers Shisui was seeking slipping under lock and key.

Shisui stared at his hands. The folds of skin, the crooks of the thumbs, the worried knuckles. Red half-moons in the white skin. Hands that let things slip, hands that couldn't move the world.

"Then let me talk to someone who does."

-x-

**End of Part IV

* * *

**

**A/N:** The Mandarin Duck, or _yuan yang_, is seen as a traditional symbol of love and fidelity in Chinese culture. _Tadahiro_ as a name means 'faithful ocean'. "The ultimate measure of a man…" is a quote from Martin Luther King Jr. that I stole and bastardized, the lyrics (as usual) are from _Winter_ by Tori Amos. No, I don't actually have original ideas, what are you talking about?

This chapter was brought to you by the National Society of Writers and Poets with Daddy Issues. Kids, be nice to your dads. And here, have a poem:

**Those Winter Sundays**

—_Robert Hayden_

Sundays too my father got up early  
and put his clothes on in the blueblack cold,  
then with cracked hands that ached  
from labor in the weekday weather made  
banked fires blaze. No one ever thanked him.

I'd wake and hear the cold splintering, breaking.  
When the rooms were warm, he'd call,  
and slowly I would rise and dress,  
fearing the chronic angers of that house,

Speaking indifferently to him,  
who had driven out the cold  
and polished my good shoes as well.  
What did I know, what did I know  
of love's austere and lonely offices?


	5. Part V

**Title: **The Colder Water (5/6)

**Series:** Naruto

**Pairing:** Shisui/Itachi

**Summary:** The devil is in the details. Shisui. Itachi. A sorta love story.

**Disclaimer:** Naruto is the property of Kishimoto Masashi.

**A/N:** Wow, it's been like three months since my last update. Does anyone even remember (or care) what this story is about anymore? If you do, and happen to own an LJ, check out our new I/S community **bitter_nakano**. Birds of a feather stick together and all that, it's the counsincest way!

* * *

**The Colder Water**

**Part V**

-x-

_Shape your mouth_  
_To fit these words of war_  
_I see the arrows falling backwards_  
_Burning for a cause_

_I'll swim with you_  
_Until my lungs give out_  
_Oh I can raise you from the deep_  
_Or drown with you in doubt_

-x-

The summons came for him on Monday.

Despite his bold words in the Hokage's office, Shisui hadn't actually expected anything to come of his request, so it came as a considerable surprise to him when he heard that Danzou had decided to grant him an audience that very afternoon.

He got over it.

The Root Headquarters was an old abandoned industrial complex at the edge of the village, a vast, echoing building with sprawling walkways and an exterior veined with rusty, clanking pipes. As he followed a masked shinobi through the main entrance, Shisui found himself plunged into near-total darkness. The small oil lamps lining the long corridor barely shed enough illumination to enable navigation. It made Shisui wonder how the whole organization managed not to collectively develop bone diseases, since there was just no way their bodies could generate enough vitamin D for optimum health under these working conditions.

"In here," the Root shinobi said, opening what appeared to be a random door. Shisui blinked, grateful for the mask that hid his bewilderment. The moment he stepped across the threshold, the door behind him slammed shut. He'd be concerned about walking into a trap if, you know, he was the kind of person that worried about such things.

Inside the doorway, there was another narrow hallway, leading to yet another door. Shisui raised his hand to knock, and stopped himself halfway, feeling like a total moron, bristling with the tension of a creature that was hunted—or hunting something. He grabbed the handle instead, and let himself in.

"You took your time," Danzou said. He was sitting at a small table, under a spill of insubstantial light, doing something that looked suspiciously like drinking tea, even though the thought of Danzou the Freakazoid consuming earthly substances was still too strange to countenance.

"I apologize, sir," Shisui replied, mumbling a little at the last syllable. "I wanted to—have the time to prepare myself for the occasion, and all that."

"It's impolite to address your superior from behind a mask," Danzou said. "There is no need for concealment here."

Seriously? This coming from the man who trained his subordinates to be incapable of emoting?

Nevertheless, Shisui knew he couldn't afford his usual flippancy here, so he reached up and dutifully removed his mask. He lifted his eyes, met Danzou's gaze from across the room, long and hard. He was acutely aware that they were both waiting for the other to speak first, and counted it as a minor victory when Danzou laid down his cup and said, "Sandaime told me that you wished to speak to me in person about some important matters."

The raspy scrape of his voice was so dry it could have sandpapered wood. Shisui drew his shoulders back, and said, "Yes, sir. I wanted to ask you about the whereabouts of my cousin—that is, Uchiha Itachi, the ANBU captain who was recently embedded with one of your squads for a mission."

"I'm perfectly aware of who Itachi is," Danzou said. "I will be happy to answer your questions, if you would oblige to answer some of mine first."

Shisui deliberated, and then figured declining wasn't an option. "That's fine with me. Fire away."

"In your opinion," Danzou began without delay, "what is the best way to carry out a mission?"

Shisui raised an eyebrow. "What _way_, sir?" His mouth had never taken a vacation before, now was clearly no time to start. "Whatever way doesn't get you and everyone else on your team killed, I guess."

"So you prioritize the safety of your comrades over the objective of the mission?"

"Depending on the situation, I have this weird tendency to think that those are essentially the same thing."

In the dimness of the room, he could see Danzou squinting at him. "You would think that," he said. "Your father was Uchiha Tadahiro, am I correct?"

What was with everyone's sudden obsession with bringing up his dad?

"Yeah," Shisui said slowly, wondering where the hell this was going. "That was him."

"I've heard a lot about him," Danzou mused. "He was quite famous during the war. Did you know that back in those days, your father was known as the Three-Day Flag?"

"No, I didn't," Shisui said, stunned. It was inconceivable that _Danzou_, of all people, was telling him something he hadn't known about his own father. "Why was he called that?"

Danzou didn't immediately respond. Calmly, he poured himself another cup of tea, and took a sip. "Has anyone ever told you about the Battle of Himeji Fort?"

_That_, he had heard of. "My father earned a Bronze star in that battle." Said star had been one of the first things his dad had burned after his mom's passing.

"Do you know what it was for?" asked Danzou.

Shisui shrugged. "Courage. Outstanding service. Could be any number of things." If there was one thing he and his dad had ever agreed on, it was that war honors were nothing to make a big deal about.

"Himeji was one of our vital strongholds," Danzou said, and continued before Shisui had a chance to remind him that he hadn't come here for a storytelling session. "It stood over the Kikyo Pass, which is one of the major passages into the Fire Country, as you probably know. During the time that your father and his company were stationed there, the fort came under an unexpected siege. Their supply line was cut off, and the nearest allies were over twenty miles away."

Shisui blinked, and couldn't help but care a little more.

Danzou cleared his throat quietly. "In order to keep Himeji from falling, they had to hold the fort for at least two weeks before reinforcement would arrive. Outnumbered four to one, and with no supplies—after the first week, you can probably imagine what morale was like among the troops."

He gave Shisui a probing look. "Some went mad," Danzou said chillingly. "Some ran away. But the great majority stayed faithful until physical death, and Himeji did not fall. Do you know why?"

"No, sir."

"The only thing that kept the Konoha shinobi from breaking rank entirely," said Danzou, "was your father's action. With two shattered femurs, he could no longer fight, but as commander, he had to keep his men from losing hope. So, in the middle of the siege, he had his subordinates hoist him up and tie his body to the flagpole, where he continued to issue commands and direct the battle. It's said that whenever our shinobi faltered, they would look to the top of the wall, and regain courage to fight."

"I've never heard about any of this," Shisui muttered, awed. People had sort of stopped mentioning his dad's shinobi days after his supposed fall from grace.

Danzou regarded him coldly, with no pretense at sympathy. "For three days, Uchiha Tadahiro remained tied to that pole, in the direct line of fire, with nothing but water passing his lips. On the fourth morning, reinforcement finally came, and Himeji Fort was not lost. That kind of self-sacrifice can't be taught."

He paused, and added in a low voice, "Which is probably why it is so rare. Especially among the people of your clan."

"_Excuse me?_"

Danzou seemed not to hear him. "You were probably an Academy student at the time. Do you happen to recall the two precepts issued to all non-civilians during the war?"

"We burn the enemies in their beds to make room to advance," Shisui said, in that quick way he hoped would prevent him from slipping up and saying something overtly revealing.

Danzou gave him a slow nod. "And clear a wide swath of bodies to have room to withdraw," he finished. "Good soldier." Utterly matter-of-fact, like Shisui should be flattered by this, should take it as some kind of compliment. It made his skin crawl.

"In some ways, we're all defined by the war," Danzou went on, lifting himself out of his seat. He was not a physically imposing man, and Shisui, with his father's rakish build, stood almost at an equal height.

_Your war_, Shisui thought furiously. Out loud, he said, "The war is over." From time to time, his naivety still got the better of him. Not often, but from time to time, a fragment would cut through to the surface.

"The war has never ended," Danzou said flatly. "Wars never end. Haven't you noticed that we, as a profession, are in the _business_ of war?"

Shisui wasn't much of a philosopher, and even if he were, he couldn't refute that. That truth was the basic tenet, the cornerstone of their existence. When they weren't fighting their own wars, they were out there risking their necks fighting other people's wars. In war, you were told to fight for a cause, but it was no cause but his own hands that had brought death to close to a hundred people, no cause but his own eyes that had gazed upon so many faces in their last moments, some settled and ready to die, and some not.

"Men will never give up waging war," Danzou said. Shisui had been told that Danzou and the Hokage were the same age, but whereas Sarutobi looked wizened, sinewy and age-speckled, Danzo was roughhewn and battle-scarred, something almost leonine in his bearings. "War is a drug. The rush of battle is an addiction, potent and lethal. All you can do is cull the impulse before it even manifests."

"With all due respect, sir," Shisui said through gritted teeth. "I think I've answered enough questions for today." Not that any of them had made a lick of sense anyway. "Can we start discussing what I came to see you about?"

"I will answer all of your questions about Itachi," Danzou said. "But before that, I have one last request. I've heard much about that unique jutsu you've recently developed. From what I've been given to understand, it's a very impressive technique."

"It's nothing special," Shisui lied. "Functionally speaking, it's not much different from the Yamanaka clan's Shinranshin technique. Anyone in the Uchiha clan could do the same if they—"

"Nevertheless," Danzou cut him off, "I wonder if you would mind giving me a practical demonstration."

"A _what?_"

"A practical demonstration. I'd like you to use your jutsu on me."

Shisui could feel his mouth gaping open, and slammed it shut with haste. "Aren't you afraid I might get into your head and find out all your secrets?" he asked, eyes narrowed in challenge.

"What makes you think I have anything to hide?" Danzou asked dryly. "In any case, if your technique truly possessed that capability, a demonstration would be even more greatly appreciated. You would be a strong asset to the village—the Interrogation Squad, for one, would highly value your assistance."

He gave Shisui a hard stare, daring him to contradict. Wily old fox. He knew how to play this game alright—knew it inside out, had probably made up all the rules. With inhuman effort, Shisui forced himself to uncurl his fists. "You say I can do anything?"

Danzou nodded. "Anything."

So Shisui said, "As you wish," and kindled the Sharingan before Danzou even found a moment to blink.

-x-

The first thing Shisui became aware of was that _something_ was very different.

The moment he redirected the flow of chakra within his body and groped for that thread of consciousness, it was as if a doorway was flung open in his mind, and he found himself submerged—suspended in what felt like deep water, cool and dark, like floating through eternity. There was no discomfort at all, and…

No pain.

Nothing. That needling pain at his temples—gone. The strain on his Sharingan—gone.

He could sense—all around him—the traces of thoughts that made up the minds of others, and realized with mild shock that he could map, with pinpoint precision, the positions of every other person on the premises, just by tracking their mental presence. He had been working all this time to increase the range of his control but this—this was _unthinkable_. A whole other level.

Yes, that must be it. This was evolution, natural progression, the breakthrough he had been hoping to reach. Up till now, his technique had always been something of a balancing act, results vs. handicaps. At the start, it had been little more than a crude form of hypnosis, piggybacking on another's thoughts and riding along like a sleeper agent, adding a nudge here, a little compulsion there before having to withdraw. Later on, he had reached the point where it had been possible to box up those thoughts, working around the core rooted deep in the victim's psyche, or, with weaker minds, plowing right in and shattering the insubstantial scrim of their shielding through brute force.

Yes. Victim. Prey.

But now… But this…

This was not bad at all.

In fact…

In fact, it was fucking _fantastic_. He could _really_ get used to this. This white-hot certainty in his mind. This mercurial flow of power. This slow song of victory.

And people thought he shouldn't be using this jutsu _why?_

And there was his next victim now, a paltry, insignificance skein, a ball of chalky light floating before him in the cold dark of the water. It would take no effort at all on his part to reach out and overpower Danzou's petrified mind, like scooping a goldfish out of the barrel at a summer festival.

His knuckles… itched.

He closed his fingers around the ball of light, and _squeezed_.

And in the world of reality, Danzou wrapped his own large hands around his veined necks, right over the windpipe, and _squeezed_. Shisui increased the pressure, and Danzou did too, easily, without any resistance.

His face was purpling, eyes bulged. His brain losing oxygen. Before Shisui's eyes, the man sank to his knees. Soon, he'd have to stop. If he went any further, exert even a fraction more force…

So what?

He hated this man.

Yes, he hated this man. It was clear to him now that Danzou—Danzou was the source of all that had gone wrong in his life as of late. He hated this man who had taken away his favorite person, and with his fist crushing Danzou's very consciousness, it all felt so…

Inevitable.

The urge choked him like a large pill. It crawled down his back like an itch, nestled into the center of his spine and lodged itself into the space between two vertebrae like a splinter, dissolved into the marrow. A hot rush, like vomit, surging up his throat. Just a little harder. One little nudge, one extra step. Just _one_.

Shisui had killed his first man at the age of eight. In retrospect, it had probably been awful—everything from the act itself to the moment his team leader had dragged Shisui back to camp and poured cold water over his head and bloody hands. It had probably been awful, but he hadn't had the frame of reference at the time to contextualize that awfulness, and by the time he had, repeated exposure had rendered it useless.

Shisui had killed his first man at the age of eight, and it had probably been awful, though it hadn't seemed that way to him. Later, though, he would learn that not everyone would have reacted the way he had. In fact, a lot of other kids—adults, even—would have broken down, would have given in to the awfulness of the experience. Some of them would never have recovered. It had occurred to him then that—maybe—it wasn't normal to deal with it the way he had. That, maybe, _he_ wasn't normal.

He'd gotten over it.

He hadn't regretted any of his kills, and if he killed Danzou now, he would get over that too. Danzou wouldn't be his last, and he wouldn't regret his death either, even though it wasn't duty. Even though such a death would have come from nothing but his own _desire_ for it.

But…

_Stop it._

_Don't be an idiot. You need him to talk._

He blinked—and it was over. His Sharingan flickered out.

He let go.

Immediately, Danzou's fingers unclamped from his neck, leaving a ring of red, and he slumped forward onto his hands and knees, coughing and retching violently. For a moment, Shisui was shot through with the vague fear that he had already gone too far and would momentarily find himself behind bars—but then, Danzou _had_ said 'anything'.

"Good," Danzou choked, wiping his mouth with his sleeve. "That's… that was very good."

He pulled himself gingerly to his feet, and said, "You've acquitted yourself well today," like he was merely dispensing platitudes to an obedient underling. You had to envy the alacrity with which he had regained his composure. That narrow gaze was on Shisui again, steady, calculating.

Shisui jerked his head impatiently. "I've done everything you asked. Now you have to hold up your end of the bargain and tell me where Itachi is."

But the moment he brought his eyes to Danzou's, he knew that he had been outsmarted. "I will give you all the information I have at my disposal," Danzou said, voice low and dark. "And that is no information at all. The squad he was embedded with lost track of Itachi on the way back to the village. I have no more knowledge of his whereabouts than you do."

"You—" Shisui snarled. Suddenly, it became clear to him what all the circuitous questions and carrot-and-stick theatrics had been about. "You _lied_ to me. You lied just to get me to show you my technique. You old bastard, I'll—"

He took a step forward, still half-drunk on the rush of absolute control, and found himself with four glittering blades pressed flush to his throat. Careless, _so_ fucking careless to let those damn Root cockroaches sneak up on him like that. The inside of his skull felt like a city under siege. The space beneath his scalp filled up with hot air; the room spun.

_Just go ahead and try something_, Shisui thought savagely. _I can take you all_. Already he was backing himself up, dipping into his chakra reservoir, molding it into a coiling thread, and all he had to do was reactivate the Sharingan and that deep dark water would envelop them…

_No. _

That shit was _treason_. Was he _insane?_ Had he gone out of his _mind?_

"Alright," he managed to get out. "I'm standing down. Get your goddamn swords away from my neck before I put them through your guts."

"As I thought," Danzou said, in that same mealy voice that raked bony fingers through Shisui's mind. "I think it's time that you were leaving, Uchiha. I will have my subordinates escort you out."

"There's no need for that," Shisui said sharply.

Danzou's expression hardened. "I insist."

The streets outside were empty and red-stained when the four-man squad ushered him out of the complex. The sun was setting fast, the sky to the west a wall of ruby clouds. The moment they had deposited Shisui on the sidewalk, the Root men took no time in melting back into the shadows of their headquarters, and then it was just him and that dreadful, syrupy light, the vacuous hush of the encroaching night.

He looked down at his hands. They were shaking.

_Some went mad, some ran away, but the great majority stayed faithful until physical death._

Danzou clearly didn't know his ass from his elbow, he decided bitterly. Shisui was fighting that war right now, every minute of every hour of the day. Out there beyond the palisade, it was all madmen and defectors, but no matter where Shisui looked, he couldn't see a single person standing on his side.

He'd never felt so alone.

-x-

Nearly a week went by, and still no words about Itachi.

Shisui didn't remember much about that week. It seemed to ebb away in a smear of days. He breathed, ate, and presumably slept. Sometimes he opened his mouth and noise came out, but mostly he just let the huge awing silence wash over him like a soundless wave, drowning him in oxygen.

His leave was up, but ironically, he now had a reason to stay in Konoha. It mattered not at all, because on the occasions he had bothered showing up at the office, Mamiya had leveled him with various expressions of concern barely discernible from homicidal irritation. "Even if you wanted to work, I wouldn't give you any assignment," she had said flatly. "As much as I would enjoy the peace and quiet of the office without you around, I don't actually wish to see you get yourself killed."

In addition, she had also informed him, in no uncertain terms, that if he tried to break into the Hokage's office one more time, he would not only be forcibly removed from the premises, but would also be wise to start polishing his résumé.

"Just go home, Shisui," Mamiya had told him in the end. "Things will work out for the best."

Except the stupid old bag didn't actually know that, and in any case, going home was not a viable option. Shisui knew being in the house would just equate to a whole lot of brooding and a million hysterical trips into the kitchen, so instead he scoped out one of the more remote archives rooms and hid there under the blatantly false pretext of trying to catch up on his backlogged paperwork.

This worked for about five minutes before Kagura sussed him out, cornering him in the jungle of filing cabinets to confess her feelings for him.

Shisui's mind went completely blank. "Wow," he said, genuinely stunned. "I mean, Kagura-san, that's just… _wow_."

Kagura winced slightly at the honorific, but continued to smile hopefully. With her cheeks dimpled and brown eyes softly downcast, a stray lock of hair brushing the side of her face, she was unbearably pretty.

Even that was seriously underselling it. She was beautiful, all legs that wouldn't quit, brilliant and sweet, knew how to dispatch an enemy in sixty different ways—and was very obviously suffering from some kind of severe psychotic break, because Shisui had no idea what someone like her would see in him otherwise. And in a moment, it became apparent that Shisui was having a psychotic break himself, because the words that came out of his mouth were, "I'm sorry, Kagura-san. I'm really, _really_ sorry."

Kagura looked like she'd been slapped in the face. "I understand," she said, uncharacteristically bashful. "You probably think it's weird, since I'm older than you."

"No!" Shisui protested immediately. "That's not it at all!" There was a kind of bleak irony to it that he hoped she would never pick up on—given his track record with older women who had long dark hair and were way out of his league, Kagura should be exactly his type.

He opened his mouth to give a lengthy explanation, which would probably go something like, "I'm related to relentlessly coldblooded lunatics one of whom I accidentally went to first base with and also the people in my immediate family have a tendency to go all stupid and suicidal when it comes to emotions so in short I am so not good enough and you can do way better."

But in the end, he just ended up repeating himself: "I'm really sorry, Kagura-san."

It was either the best or worst possible response to give, because it made Kagura sigh softly, and send him a smile, wobbly but gracious. She might as well have kicked him in the nuts.

"I always kind of knew I didn't have much of a shot anyway," she said kindly. "After all, it would be very hard for someone like me to compete."

"Compete?" Shisui echoed in confusion. "No, I'm not seeing anyone, it's just—"

Kagura shook her head. "If it was just that, I would actually feel a bit better about my chances."

"But you just said—"

"If you could see yourself right now, you would understand," Kagura said. "You may be sitting here talking to me, but your mind might as well be a thousand miles away."

And when Shisui continued to stare at her without any comprehension, Kagura gave another sigh, a concerned frown splitting her brows neatly. "You should get some rest, Shisui-kun," she said. "You don't look good. Have you been sleeping well?"

She sounded like she might want this inquiry to segue into some kind of extensive discussion about feelings, which Shisui decided he could not handle today. Or any day.

"I'm doing just fine," he lied, and jumped to his feet, giving in to cowardice. "Anyway, doesn't look like I'll be getting anything done here today, so I'll just… get going. I'll see you later, alright?"

As he ran from Kagura's imploring gaze, Shisui found himself thinking, strangely, about the year he'd been eleven—the Year of the Dog—when the sky had taken revenge on the land and rained for seven days and seven nights without reprieve. The Nakano had bloated with water, overflowed in a torrential spill, and for days it'd seemed like the entire village had lived on that groaning bank, heaving sandbags against the collapsing dam and trying to keep their minds from being crushed under the thrashing flood. On a scale from one to ten, ten being Tailed Demon Attack, that year's flood didn't rank very high in terms of catastrophic disasters, but for this, it seemed more apt as a metaphor.

It was his own fault. It was his fault for being willfully blind and deaf, for not having the foresight to seek higher ground while the water had slowly been seeping in, lapping docilely at his feet. Now the floodgates were broken, and he was in over his head.

-x-

The worst part, Shisui realized, was that if something were to happen, nobody would _tell_ him.

He had lived for so long within this abnormal bubble-like existence wherein all the shipwrecks and rocky shoals revolved around a single person that somehow he had managed to forget that, to the rest of the world, he was no one. To the rest of the world, Shisui was just Itachi's former partner and somewhat distant relative, and if something were to happen, nobody would tell him. Not the clan, certainly not Root—at best, he would receive some kind of notice from the Hokage's office after all the dust had settled, and then Fugaku would probably inform him that he wouldn't be allowed at the funeral, and Shisui would go into rage blackout and accidentally mind-control the man to death and be tossed in prison to rot for the rest of his mortal days, which would probably be a positive at that point.

Shisui wasn't some distraught war bride, and so was not found throwing himself prostrate over his father's grave weepily bemoaning his various woes into the cold, unyielding stone. That didn't stop him from hovering around the general area of the memorial cenotaph anyway, doing increasingly unforgivable things like tracing his father's engraved name with his fingers and sitting with his back pressed to the cool black marble staring unseeingly at the sky. His mind turning like a wheel, every scrap of thought dredging up like sea wrack out of the tide, scuttling in and out of rat-holes. He thought about flashfloods. He thought about destiny. Mostly, he thought about whether there would be anything left to hold him to Konoha should the nightmare scenarios of his inner-mind theater come to life.

The clan?

He'd already made it clear the other day that he wanted nothing to do with them anymore.

His friends?

No good. Their faces swam indistinctly before his eyes. They had shared comradeship, many hours of laughter and conversation and camaraderie, but when it came down to it, no one would ever compare.

His duties to the village?

Now _there _was a real possibility. This was his home, the place where he had been born and raised, and he was an all-Konoha boy through and through, all fire and spunk and mile-wide protective streak at heart. It seemed natural, almost _unquestionable_ that one of his highest priorities would be to serve the village to the best of his ability until the day he died.

But.

_But_.

A village really wasn't _just_ a place. It was people, and when it came down to it, there was 'people' and then there was '_your_ people'. Shisui calculated the difference, and then tried not to think about the fact that over the years, the number of his so-called "Precious People" had dwindled from three to two, then one, and was currently running the very real risk of hitting rock bottom.

Somehow, in all his sixteen years, Shisui had never known love could feel like this. Like you were just constantly and completely broken, and then put back together again, only the one piece that was yours was now beating in the other person's chest. Someone should have told him this, but the only person who could have had been too busy running away from a broken heart himself.

Although he'd come close to it, his father had not left the village—but then again, he had had Shisui to think about. Sometimes Shisui liked to pretend that he had been nothing more to his dad than an afterthought, a postscript after the curtains had already fallen on his personal tragedy, but that was just him being an entitlement jerk. He had been the one thing keeping his dad tethered to Konoha, and if Shisui had been the one to die instead of the other way around, he knew that his dad would have thrown it all away. He would have thrown it all away, gone rogue and killed whomever they dared to send after him in cold blood, all natural non-violent way of life or not. He would have done all that and more, and he wouldn't have cared, because there wouldn't have been anything left to care about.

Shisui knew this with bone-deep certainty, because at this moment, that was exactly how he felt. He'd taken a lot for granted, stupidly believing that time would never run out, but now it had and there was nothing he could do but lay the story straight—and this was what it was about:

It was about nine years, four months, three weeks, and half a day. It was about split knuckles and cut lips, a skewed but consistent sense of justice, and later, about cinder and smoke and shakily-held weapons, a world where the ground cleaved open underfoot and the sky was full of flying death. And yet later _still_, it was about parallel paths and warring convictions, not-so-shakily-held weapons and mingling blood, sultry autumns on a riverbank and one memorably frigid winter when silence took the rein. It was about a night in July on the way up north, hiding in the warm, mossy hollow of a fallen tree from the rolling thunder and the furious rain that fell from the sky in sheets upon back-breaking sheets, a cramped space that seemed not so cramped because all the edges had been worn down to fit in the course of a shared history.

It was about permeation, about something that needed nothing, because it had sprung to life fully formed, already perfectly synched like one flow of oxygen that fed two separate hearts, and to change even a single component part would be suicide, no question about it.

It was a story. A story written on his skin, scarred into his heart by the prickling of tattoo needles. A story about what happened when people met when they were barely children, and then immediately _stopped_ being children. A story about skies and roads and bridges and rivers, but mostly, it was a story about love—love unspoken, love in exile, love under siege.

Yes, it was a story about love, and no, it wasn't the greatest story in the history of the world but it was _his_. It was _his_ goddamn story, and when it came down to it, no one would ever compare.

So really, what else was there?

"You can come out," Shisui said to the air. "I know you're there."

"I've never seen you out here this early in the day," Kakashi remarked, stepping into the clearing with the customary absence of sound. "I had the impression you weren't a morning person."

Shisui did not turn to look at him. "I know what favor the Hokage asked you to do." He scratched absently at the tattoo on his arm, as if Kakashi's appearance had just reminded him that it was, in fact, still there. "He wanted you to watch me, didn't he?"

"Not anymore, Shisui-kun," Kakashi said lightly. "As I said before, you passed."

"Funny, I don't remember asking to be put through some kind of test," Shisui said crossly.

"That was the point."

He sounded sympathetic—and all things considered, he likely was. Once again, Kakashi _would_ be the one to understand where Shisui was coming from, even if this considerate silence was all that he could afford to offer. It made Shisui wish he lived in a world where the question 'Are you okay?' was a perfectly acceptable conversation opener, and not just invitation to vast, horrible personal trauma. It was like a cruel inheritance, curse and blessing rolled into one, and it just kept going on and on in a feedback loop.

"Maybe you were too hasty," Shisui found himself biting out, halfway to insanity. "Maybe you shouldn't have passed me so easily. You don't know what I might decide to do next."

"That's true," Kakashi replied. "But neither do you."

Shisui glared at the air in front of him. "I'm not going to talk about it," he groused. "If you're going to stay, you should know that I'm not going to talk about it, so don't bother asking."

"I don't intend to," Kakashi said. "You don't have to talk about anything you don't want to, Shisui-kun."

"Fine," Shisui said, folding his arms over his knees. "I won't."

So they stayed there, and didn't talk about it.

-x-

By the following day, he had reached a decision.

It was already late in the afternoon when Shisui rose. He dressed wearily, pulling clothes from his closet that seemed relatively neutral, which was hard because apparently Shisui didn't own anything that wasn't an Uchiha shirt or some part of his ANBU uniform. It was an empty gesture, he knew, but somehow, it felt important. Lastly, he went into the kitchen. He took down the note from his fridge, and ripped it to shreds, letting the torn pieces flutter to the floor as he walked out the door.

Mamiya glanced up from her desk when Shisui walked through the door, and immediately opened her mouth to speak. He raised his hand in a pacifying gesture.

"Relax. I didn't come to badger the Hokage. I just want to put in a transfer request."

She stared at him incredulously. "You're _resigning?_"

"No, no, you misunderstand," Shisui said. "An _internal_ transfer. I'd like to be removed from Field Unit and placed into Intelligence as soon as I'm cleared for deployment again."

There was a pause. Mamiya narrowed her eyes, and said, "Why?"

"Like you said, it'd probably be good for me to keep a lighter ops tempo from now on," Shisui said. Casual as casual. "If I work for Intel, I'll get to be home a lot more often, too."

"Something tells me it's not the village you're interested in sticking around for," Mamiya observed.

Shisui shrugged. "There's that too. But same difference—it all works out to both of our advantage, doesn't it? Win, win. This way, you won't have to enforce furloughs just to keep me from running amok."

For a long moment, Mamiya just looked at him. Then she diverted her gaze to the tottering pile of paper on her desk, and said, "I'll have to speak with Hokage-sama."

Her voice was cold—impersonal and without a trace of irritation. The way it had never been before.

"You do that," Shisui said, and left the office.

Five minutes later, he was standing at the top step of the Military Police Headquarters, courtesy of three Shunshin leaps. A record, even for him.

Shisui had lost his mother at the age of four, when the war clinic she'd been stationed in had burned down around her and the clan had failed to send assistance when she'd radioed for help. He had watched his father slowly disintegrate like a crumbling mountain, the tenuous hope of recovery dashed on the day of Yondaime's death, and had practically raised himself from the age of seven and done a damn good job. Shisui was the one who'd led his classmates on the run the day a platoon of Cloud shinobi had broken through the village's defenses and decapitated their Chuunin instructor right in the middle of the Academy's courtyard. He had performed more S-rank missions than he could remember off the top of his head, had broken every bone in his body at one point or another and lived to tell about it, and somehow, this _still_ felt like the hardest thing he'd ever have to do.

There was no help for it. This wasn't a fight he could win alone. He needed allies. When all the options you were presented with seemed equally terrible, you had to go with the devil you knew.

All Shisui knew was: there were things he needed to know. He would never be left out in the cold again.

No one stopped him as he walked down the bland, yellowing hallway, though he could feel himself being watched. Just before he reached the end of the corridor, a door to his left clicked open and someone stepped out into the hall. It was Yasuo, who blinked at Shisui in surprise.

"Shisui," Yasuo said, frowning, "what are you doing here?"

"I wanted to see Fugaku-sama," Shisui said in a rush. "He—the other day." There was an odd, sort of ashy taste in his mouth. He took a small breath, and said, "I'm ready to accept your offer."

Yasuo just stared at him, eyes searching and dark. Then he smiled, firm and somewhat relieved. "I'm glad to hear that," he said simply, and clapped Shisui on the shoulder. The weight almost staggered him.

Nevertheless, he pushed himself forward, taking the last few steps toward the large door that stood at the end of the hallway. Yasuo followed him. He knocked on the door, and then held it open for Shisui, nodding at him with the same warm smile that Shisui couldn't bring himself to return. He was almost glad to have an excuse to get away, until he stepped inside the spacious office and found himself face to face with the man he had so often wished would do the world a favor and remove himself from the gene pool.

Fugaku regarded him silently over the top of his desk, and it was possible Shisui had lost his mind because he found something oddly familiar about that look—a look that reminded you of the shortening days of winter, chilling air.

"What is it that you want with me?" Fugaku said.

Shisui wondered stupidly if he should get down on his knees, but then remembered that the very fact of his being here was enough of a supplicating gesture in itself. Even dogs had pride, but in this moment, Shisui didn't feel at all regretful about lopping off all of his in one big, useless chunk. Pride hadn't gotten him very far, anyway. Pride couldn't help you swim.

Better get right to it, then. "I have just now lodged a transfer request with the Hokage's office," Shisui said haltingly, trying to keep his voice neutral. "If it goes through, I'm going to be working in the ANBU's Intelligence division from now on. The same division as Itachi."

"And?" Fugaku asked.

Shisui swallowed hard. "And I have thought a lot about what you said to me the other day. I've decided that you were—" He had to take a moment. "—that you were right, and that the clan's best interest is my best interest as well. So. I'm here to accept the assignment that you spoke of the other day—the other day at the meeting."

Every stilted word that stumbled out of his mouth made him feel like a traitor of the greatest magnitude, but he had anticipated that and made a point to sandbag those thoughts. This was necessary, he rationalized. Omelets and eggs, you had to be willing to break a few.

Or perhaps that wasn't it at all. Perhaps this necessary evil was also an act of self-preservation, a reserve lifeline. Itachi, he reasoned to himself, had always seemed to Shisui like a vast ice floe, muted and frozen over, but hiding all the cold sea under its surface. For years, Shisui had been wandering blindly across that icy veneer, heedless of the insidious cracks growing like vines under his feet. As precarious and deceptive as that surface was, it was all that made up his standing ground, and if he should allow it to shatter, he would plunge right through the broken ice into the dark water below, colder and more obliterating than even the corpse-skinned winter sky.

And if Shisui kept feeding himself horseshit like that, perhaps the words would get beat into his head, so that even if he didn't start believing them, he'd be too concussed at that point to notice.

"You were quite adamant in your refusal the last time we spoke," Fugaku said, breaking the silence. He seemed to be sizing Shisui up, weighing his words. "What made you change your mind?"

Shisui deliberated for a moment, and then said, "Family is an obligation, not a choice. And anyway, it—it might not even matter anymore."

"We don't know that for certain," Fugaku said tightly. "You should have hope."

That made Shisui startle, and look up into Fugaku's steady gaze. He had never liked Fugaku, but even he had to admit that the man had an imposing, almost compelling air about him. It wasn't really that weird. He was, after all, Itachi's father. _A father_, Shisui thought, staggered with dissonance. This man standing before him was a father. He had a son—_two_, even—and for a moment Shisui wondered if Fugaku had ever been the kind of father who put family before duty and honor, who bought his children presents above their age, always in a hurry for them to grow up as all fathers tended to be.

If so, he had gotten exactly what he'd wished for: a son who had never known how to walk like a boy, loose-limbed and free, but had from the first adopted the gait of a soldier, treading hard upon the heel, weighed down under the yoke of duty. Shisui almost wanted to ask Fugaku if he thought it was worth it.

"I know we've had our differences, Shisui," Fugaku said. "But if you are willing to lend your cooperation, I'm certain that we will be able to put the past behind us, and work together for the good of the clan."

He paused, and gave a short little sigh, almost weary. "And for Itachi, of course."

"Of course," Shisui echoed. "_Now_ will you tell me about Itachi's mission?"

"Until you've proven yourself trustworthy," Fugaku said in a measured tone, "information will only be given to you on a need to know basis."

"Well, I think _this_ counts as needing to know," Shisui snapped, shoulder jagging with frustration. "How am I supposed to proceed with my assignment if I don't know anything about it? And personally, sir? I would think that the very fact that I _came to you_ today should be proof enough of my 'trustworthiness'."

Fugaku's response was to shift slightly sideway in his chair. The expression of faint scorn receded from his face, replaced by a distant kind of concentration, stark in profile. Momentarily, he snapped his gaze back to Shisui, and said, "You are right." There was no trace in his voice of the empty politeness from a moment ago; it was now cold, flat.

"Take a seat. What I'm about to tell you must not be allowed to leave this room."

-x-

"Fuck," Shisui muttered, raking one hand through his hair. "_Fuck._"

Fugaku said nothing, just sat in silence with his hands folded over his desk, which Shisui felt was rather considerate of him given that Shisui was _freaking the fuck out_. His face, skin, eyes, every bit of his body felt hot, burning up. And only a week ago he'd worried about committing treason by killing Danzou. This revelation made those delicate concerns look monumentally stupid.

"There's got to be some kind of mistake," Shisui said. He could feel the tremor in his throat shaking every syllable loose. "The clan—we have too much influence , we've _always been here_." Strange, how those we's slipped so easily from his mouth. "They can't just shut us out like that."

"They can, and they have," Fugaku said. Not derisive, just matter-of-fact. "The recent dismissal of our clansmen from their official posts is just one example. This has begun long before that."

"What about the MP?" Shisui asked. "The Uchiha still have control over the police force, right?"

Fugaku made a dismissive noise. "That's a polite fiction the village's leaders keep up in an attempt to placate us and keep things on an even keel. In reality, our jurisdiction grows more limited by the day." His eyes hardened. "If you had ever bothered to take an interest in the clan before now, you would have known that."

"Well, I'm here now," Shisui snapped. Family grudge aside, you'd think someone would have thought to inform him of their clan's _imminent demise_. "Tell me—" Everything. "—tell me what I need to know."

"While you were away on the field," Fugaku said, "our agent within the Hokage's office was able to alert us to the existence of—how should I put this—certain _plans_ that the Council have in store for the Uchiha clan. If we don't make our moves now, it'll be too late once they are implemented."

Shisui narrowed his eyes. "And by agent, you mean…"

"Yes," Fugaku said. "Our inside man in the Hokage's office—in the ANBU—is Itachi. Or at least he was, until very recently." He tilted his head in Shisui's direction. "But you're already aware of that."

"Have you tried," Shisui began, feeling terribly stupid, young and gauche and helpless, "negotiation—I don't know, just talking it out?"

Out of what was probably pity, Fugaku chose not to point out the glaring flaw in his argument. "Even if Sarutobi Hiruzen could be reasoned with, we have no hope of negotiating with the Council—much less certain other parties." He paused, and gave Shisui a meaningful look. "I'm speaking, of course, of Danzou Shimura, leader of the organization known as Root. As far as we know, they're the ones responsible for Itachi's disappearance."

Shisui looked at the ground at his feet, and felt incredibly heavy. Fugaku's words were weighing him down, his body a rock in this chair, mountainous. Slowly, he brought his eyes up to lock gaze with the man sitting opposite him.

"I know that you admire the Hokage," Fugaku said. "I would go even as far as to say that you are close to him. But when it comes down to it, do you think that he would stand against the Council for our sake?"

And Shisui thought of that morning, seemingly a geologic era ago, when Sandaime had sent Itachi off with the squad from Root, out into the world beyond his control.

"You take pride in your ability as a shinobi. How would feel when the children of our clan are stripped of that right and barred from attending the Academy? Will you wait until then to act?"

Invasive questions, those—and no wonder. This wasn't just about deserting the village, about running away when there was nothing left to stay for. No, this was bigger than that, bigger than him, bigger than anything he'd ever experienced. How did you make a decision like this? How did you stack the weight of a village up against that of one person?

Hadn't he already done that?

And there, there it was, the nick in the edge of that axe. In war, you were told to fight for a cause, and Shisui knew that his had been chosen for him long before he could have been aware of it. His banner held the face of a person, his war cry the shape of a name. Itachi's presence under his skin was a vaccine against the plague of reason. Shisui heard his voice even in his absence, urging him to rise to the occasion, and felt himself rinsed of doubt, his vision scrubbed by sudden clarity.

"What must I do?"

"Initially, I only intended to have you keep an eye on Itachi," Fugaku said, "but now that you've been made aware of where we stand, there is a much more important mission that you might be able to undertake, should you be willing to accept it."

"And what mission is that?" asked Shisui.

Fugaku laced his fingers under his chin. "In the event that—" He halted, seemingly finding it difficult to complete his sentence. "In the event that Itachi does not return, I want you to take up the task he had been assigned—to replace him as our eye and ear within the Hokage's office. You will be in a perfect position to do so, once you've settled into your Intelligence duties. Do you have any objections?"

Shisui opened his mouth to speak, but Fugaku held up one hand to stall him. "Think about it carefully first. It's a highly difficult task—and dangerous, considering the instability of the current situation. You shouldn't make any rash decision."

The quelling hand formed a fist on top of the desk. "At the same time, do consider this: we have not entirely given up hope on reaching… a peaceable solution. Persuasion may have to come in the form of manipulation." Words encrusted with portent. "That is a unique capability that no one but you possesses."

Shisui nodded, to show that he understood.

"Because of your father's decisions," Fugaku went on, voice going a bit gravelly, "I have admittedly never been quite certain as to where you would choose to stand. But if you accept this mission, your loyalty will be unquestioned. It will be the ultimate proof of your devotion to the clan."

_When has that ever mattered to me_, Shisui thought, but said, "I'll do it—I accept the mission," anyway, because this was what Itachi had wanted and that was why it mattered.

Silence descended, heavy, seal on paper. A struck deal.

"As a token of trust," Fugaku said. "I will disclose to you some highly classified information regarding the circumstances of your father's death."

Shisui jerked in his seat. He'd entirely forgotten about that. His heart rate jacked to hammering-speed. He remembered to blink when his eyes started to burn.

"I've heard that you were recently called to a private meeting with Danzou."

It was like there were no secrets in this damn town. Some hidden village.

"While you were there, did he make of you any special request?"

"Just one," Shisui said cautiously. "He asked me to demonstrate my mind-control technique."

Fugaku nodded, as though Shisui's answer had only confirmed what he'd already known. "There's no point in beating around the bush," he said. "The investigation we conducted led us to believe that Root was behind your father's death. However, we suspect that Tadahiro was not their true target. It is our belief that Danzou is going after _you_."

Shisui clenched his fists over the top of his knees, digging the nails into his palms. "And in your investigation, did you happen to uncover _why_ they might be after me?"

"Your ability is not just an asset to the clan," Fugaku said quietly. "You shouldn't be surprised that there are those who covet it for much less honorable purposes."

Shisui wasn't aware that mind-controlling your way through a coup d'état constituted an honorable purpose, but he kept his mouth shut and let Fugaku's solemn voice roll over him.

"If it is indeed your Sharingan that Danzou seeks to obtain, it stands to reason that he would have wanted to conduct preliminary testing using materials collected from your closest living relative."

Those words, they hit him like a blow to the throat. "You mean he conducted trial runs using my father's stolen Sharingan?" His voice shook, seized by a savage combination of anger and disgust that Fugaku somehow interpreted as fear, because he said, "You need not worry. The clan is prepared to take every action necessary to protect its own. You're one of us."

The unspoken '_Don't ever forget that._' lingered in the air between them.

"Very well, then," Fugaku went on, businesslike and brusque. "Everything from here should be straightforward enough. From now, you are an undeclared member of the Military Police. I will arrange for you to work under our Head of Internal Affairs. In the future, you will report directly to him."

"Yes, sir," Shisui said. He had to take a moment to steady his breathing, before saying, "If there's nothing else, I'll be on my way."

His mind swelled and wallowed with the ebb and flow of this new information, struck broadside by rough waters. A strain of reasoning cracking along slowly in hairline fractures. Danzou might have had a hand in his father's murder. Danzou could be after him. Itachi had gotten tangled up with Root somehow. What was the connection here that he was not seeing?

"Shisui," Fugaku said abruptly. "Before you leave, may I ask just one thing?"

Shisui stopped in his track. It didn't occur to him to say yes or no—to say anything at all.

"What is it that you like about my son?"

Shisui blinked. He shifted his gaze to the floor, bit his lip. What, indeed.

"It's hard to say," he said finally, looking up. "We met when I'd just sort of lost all my family. In one way or another, I guess being friends with him made me feel like I'd gained something back."

For the first time, a look of surprise flitted across Fugaku's features, a frail instant in which the hardness of his jaw line faltered and he became almost see-through. Shisui toyed with the idea of calling him on it, and refrained, out of deference to Fugaku's earlier consideration of his own weakness.

"That is all," Fugaku said, after a moment. "You may go. I wish you the best of luck with the task you've been entrusted with."

Shisui smiled back thinly. "I doubt it's luck I'll be needing, sir. But thanks for the thought."

Fugaku nodded back at him. They had, somehow, come to a kind of understanding.

The door closed with a solemn finality behind him.

It had begun.

-x-

**End of Part V

* * *

**

**A/N: **Since writing the last chapter, I came to the realization that I've up till now been unduly mean to Fugaku. Coup instigator and surly clan head he may be, but in the manga he was shown to actually care about Itachi. Uh, he tried to shield him from the Police, at any rate? I always knew there was a reason I was so nice to him in Deep River.


	6. Part VI

**Title: **The Colder Water (6/6)

**Series:** Naruto

**Pairing:** Shisui/Itachi

**Summary:** The devil is in the details. Shisui. Itachi. A sorta love story.

**Disclaimer:** Naruto is the property of Kishimoto Masashi.

**A/N:** Before anything, let me just mention that the Livejounal ItaShi community, **bitter_nakano**, is hosting a summer exchange. Yeah, you know what that means: nothing but fic! And art! Postings begin tomorrow, so for those interested in an extra strong dose of murderous cousincest, yonder lies your poison.

* * *

**The Colder Water**

**Part VI**

-x-

_Cinder and smoke_  
_You'll ask me to pray for rain_  
_With ash in your mouth_  
_You'll ask it to burn again_

-x-

It was a surreal experience, walking out of that office. The main hallway was just as quiet as before, but there was something new and unspoken in this dense hush. Shisui could sense it when Yasuo flashed him a small smile as he passed—the men grouped around him following suit—but the full reality of what he had done didn't sink in until he was almost at the door and Yuudai came _flying_ out from one of the side offices. He ran up to Shisui, and dragged him into a bone-melting embrace.

"I _knew_ you'd come around," said Yuu, pummeling his fist into Shisui's back like he wanted to knock the breath out of him. "I just knew you would. You're way too smart not to realize what's what."

He let go of Shisui and took a step back, eyes brimming with genuine affection. Shisui gave him a grin, feeling it pull tightly at the skin of his cheeks.

A soft expression settled over Yuudai's face. He clamped both his hands to Shisui's shoulders, and looked him straight in the eye. "Hey. All that stuff between us—it's water under the bridge, alright?"

"Yeah," Shisui said weakly. He tried to do something with his hands that didn't involve them fisting into the material of his pants until the knuckles turned chalk-white, but it didn't work.

"This is going to be great, you'll see." Yuu's voice was thick with excitement, gaining vim and vigor as he spoke. "Now that you've made the right choice, I mean. Everything will be just fine. _More_ than fine. It'll be _great_. Just really, fucking great."

Shisui still couldn't think of anything to say, so he just nodded dumbly, and let Yuu's voice wash over him, much like the silence of before.

"Shisui, you know that's all I wanted, right?" Yuudai said, strong wrists propped earnestly by his neck, a steady, even weight. "For you to make the right choice? You're like a brother to me, you know?"

Yuudai had three younger sisters, ages thirteen, nine, and four, all of whom worshipped him like the sun and moon in their celestial dome. He was a model son to his parents, a solid comrade in a tight spot, and for the most part had been nothing but good to Shisui. But Yuudai was also wrong. He was not Shisui's brother. He had never taken a hit for him. He had never followed Shisui into the mountains.

_You never let me bleed on you, _Shisui thought. _You're not my brother, and this is not the right choice._

But he had no right to think like that anymore. Slowly, Shisui unclenched his fists, and smiled at Yuudai in the way that he knew made his eyes laugh—like this was no big deal and that he really believed what Yuu had said about how things were going to be alright, great, really fucking great. So what if the hypocrisy of it clawed its way into his heart and rent his ventricles apart?

"So I better go," Shisui said with a prosaic shrug. "Got my work cut out for me and all that, right?"

Yuudai nodded, and gave his shoulders each a firm squeeze before letting go. His smile followed Shisui to the door, bright with trust. Shisui almost felt sick again, so he quickened his pace, practically ran out into the open air. He took several deep breaths to quash down the suffocating feeling rising inside him, the air scorching his lungs on its way down. The afternoon was quickly draining as he made his way down Main Street, the desire to be anywhere but here burning a hole through his chest.

He saw Sasuke running toward him even before he heard his voice.

Shisui considered leaping off in the opposite direction. He didn't have any information to give, and if Sasuke was calling his name in such naked desperation then obviously neither did he, and therefore they had no business talking to each other. But apparently Sasuke was a lot faster than he'd previously given him credit for, because he reached him before Shisui could make a decision.

Shisui said, "Skipping school's not going to put you on the fast track to becoming a great ninja," which coming from him must be eleven kinds of rich, but whatever.

"I'm not…" Sasuke sputtered, clutching at the strap of his schoolbag. "I _didn't_." His bottom jaw settled itself, and he said in a tight voice, "Nii-san still hasn't come home."

"I think I'm aware of that, yes."

Sasuke stared at him mutely. His expression seemed dangerously brittle, full of a hungering need. It was unacceptable. Some sort of delusion was at work here. They might share a favorite person, but that didn't make them kindred spirits, and it sure as hell didn't make them friends.

"Come here," Shisui said. Sasuke came to him, willing and completely unguarded, like he was expecting a hug, some gesture of comfort, a friendly touch. Instead, Shisui took him by the shoulder, leaned down, and said, "I'll tell you a story, okay? Listen."

"It's a pretty short story," he said pleasantly. "It's about this guy, right? He lives in a village, and as far everybody else is concerned, he's a decent guy. A decent guy with a younger brother. And it's about this girl, who also has a brother. And this other guy, also a brother, an older one. And one other girl, now _she_ has a sister. And you know what all of those people have in common?"

Silently, Sasuke shook his head.

Smiling very slightly, Shisui said, "I killed them all this year. Really, I'd show you my mission log, if it weren't completely confidential. I never met any of them until the day I cut their throats, or broke their minds, or whatever. All I knew about them, I learned from recon reports. All this in a three-week span. Impressive, right? Now you know why they call me one of the best. That's what you want too, isn't it?"

"So that's the story." He let go of Sasuke's shoulder. "And the moral of this story is that you can't depend on other people to lick your wounds. The sooner you learn that, the easier it'll be for you down the line, understand?"

The expression on Sasuke's face, already unstable, finally collapsed like a tent bereft of its poles, quietly but suddenly. Shisui couldn't help but think bitterly that all this just happened to dovetail so nicely into the odd little pattern their relationship had fallen into these past few weeks. All for the best, really.

"_I hate you_," Sasuke screamed, scrunching his eyes up in an effort to push back tears. If the sky weren't so wide, his voice would echo. "You're supposed to be his friend. I hate you. _I hope you die_."

Shisui reined in a bitter smile, watching Sasuke wheel away from him and run in the opposite direction, wiping his eyes furiously. In Sasuke's place, maybe he'd want the same thing.

There was time enough for that. His decision was nothing more than insurance for the future; at this moment, he still had the present to contend with. Sasuke was only eight. He still had both of his parents, clean hands, a nice pat future, he'd get over it. With any luck, so would the rest of the eight-year-olds in the clan. Made the right sacrifices, and you wouldn't have to make too many of them.

That was why it mattered, right?

He needed to be doing something. It was a bad day to be a certain training post, because it was about to get the shit torched out of it in T-minus 5 minutes. It wasn't much, but it _was_ something.

Something prodded the back of his mind. He looked up at the sky, to the west, where a flock of birds were flying in a circle.

-x-

If he hadn't been so preoccupied with certain new developments in his life, Shisui would have remembered that he had meant to investigate the mystery of the forest. Now was as good a time as any. He took the shortcut by way of the river, cutting through the reed beds on its far bank, still verdant in late summer. Blood hit the sky. The evening wind was beginning to pick up when he entered the mouth of the trees, and it took him approximately two seconds to realize that he was probably walking into a trap.

But all the old books had it right. You couldn't nab the cub without entering the tiger's den.

Warily, he stalked through the underbrush, expecting at any moment an attack or the freaking sky to be dropped on his head.

And came it did, in the form of a small black blur zipping through the space that, hadn't he moved out of the way, would have been occupied by Shisui's head.

What the fuck was _that?_

Two seconds later, another shadow went whizzing past. Then another. And another. Soon he was dodging fulltime, assailed from all directions. It felt like being shot at, except as far as he could tell there wasn't a sniper in the area, and anyway, a sniper couldn't be everywhere at once, right?

Another flurry rushed him—the bullets, for lack of a better name, seemed to be multiplying by the second—and he didn't launch himself away quickly enough. One of the shadow bullets sliced right through his upper arm, leaving a stinging burn. He stumbled, just for a fraction of a second, and barely snapped his head back in time to avoid another direct headshot, which grazed across his eyebrow instead. Blood trickled eagerly into his eye. Shisui wiped it away, and let his Sharingan flare to life.

There. Now he could see.

It was, all things considered, pretty embarrassing to be caught in a genjutsu without even realizing it, but in his defense, it was a pretty unusual one. Shisui licked the swipe of blood off his knuckle as he reassessed his situation. Realistic genjutsu he'd dealt with in spades, but this wasn't it. Neither was he incapacitated, lying somewhere on the forest ground while his mind was violated. No, he was still in possession of his senses—it was the _environment_ that had been altered.

The shadows had him surrounded, spawned from the very darkness that shrouded the forest. Hostile chakra all around, the air saturated with it, alive with a buzzing sound reminiscent of hungry locusts.

Yes, he could see now.

This was a maze.

Currently, he was on the outer edges, and these… things, whatever they were, were no more than sentries keeping guard. So there must be something that needed guarding. Somewhere at the heart of this elaborate puzzle lay the answer to his mystery, and from the looks of it, the answer was determined to make things a little too interesting for him on the way in.

But then? He was pretty sure he'd fought worse.

And? Reading chakra flows was practically his specialty.

The mass of shadows roiled restlessly like a wave, and exploded outward without warning, sentient shrapnel hungry for blood. Shisui bent double, clawed out a quick seal—and he was in the air. A bullet sliced right through his body, which flickered and vanished. Just a mirage with a fake chakra signature. He was about a dozen yards ahead.

And then there was nothing but the motion of his body, more natural than breathing, more perfect than oxygen. _Nothing fancy_. _Take it back to basics, Uchiha._ _Take it back to basics. _Inside the silence of his flesh, his blood was roaring, every nerve in his body singing the shrill, frenzied song of _fight or flight_, _fight or flight, fight or flight. _

It all came down to speed and instinct. This was the move that'd earned him his name, the last image that many of Uchiha Shisui's enemies had seen—or rather, _hadn't_ seen—right before they'd died. Shadows were peppering him left and right, but he was beyond their reach now. His body left a trail of afterimages, a smear of decoys that dissipated upon contact with the bullets. A simple, but useful modification.

But the swarm didn't give up. They were annoyingly persistent. Shisui counted his leaps as they came. His highest record up until now had been 350 consecutive Shunshin steps—currently, he was pushing 400, and starting to feel it. Soon, he'd have to stop to catch his breath; something told him his pursuers did not share this limitation. If he didn't figure out the way to the center of this artificial space, he'd _never_ be able to throw them off, and it was only a matter of time before his stamina gave out…

430.

440.

45—_found it!_

The ground dropped out from beneath him.

Not a problem. His body shifted into automatic semi-controlled fall and braced for impact…

…which was approaching much faster than anticipated. He was being jerked downward by a sudden immense gravity, and had zero time for preparation. The ground he hit felt more like concrete than any cushy forest floor, and not even his adjusted stance kept him from dislocating his shoulder, but he just shifted quickly to his side and slammed it into the ground, once.

Felt it pop back into place.

Good.

He would definitely be feeling that later when the adrenaline wore off, but right now…

Right now the physics of his surroundings were changing _again_. Shisui leapt, but didn't get very far before his body fell flat to the ground, dragged down by the stupendous force of gravity. He tried to push himself up, and cried out in pain as the muscles in his bad shoulder snapped and strained. It was like being caught on a sheet of flypaper, fastened in place with hot glue. _I'm just an insect here_, Shisui thought furiously. _Strapped down with nowhere to fly._

Footsteps sounded somewhere to his left. Shisui's spine stiffened, his heart thudding wildly in his chest.

"Very impressive," said a cold voice, sexless and disgustingly conversational. "You move like a phantasm, and you can even read the energy flow well enough to navigate within my illusion. A highly commendable effort."

The new arrival was now standing right next to his ear. If he could just turn his head, just a few inches…

"But this is still a controlled environment. As a genjutsu user, you should have anticipated that."

Shisui tried to raise his head and something hard—a heel—slammed flat across his nape, sending little flowers of pain blossoming on the back of his eyelids as his face hit the ground. A coppery taste filled his mouth, wet and raw.

"That's enough now. When you know that you can't win, it is wiser to stand down."

"That's what _you_ think," Shisui growled, and drew his consciousness into himself, let the Sharingan swirl. Reached out for a foreign strand of consciousness, for a sign that would prove his opponent was even _human_ and…

Nothing.

The pressure removed itself from his neck, and with it, the choking hold of gravity. Shisui rolled onto his side, and a foot smashed into his solar plexus, doubling him over like a shrimp. Before he had time to catch the next shattered breath, down it came again, stomping square across his outstretched wrist. Started _grinding_. He heard rather than felt the crunch of bones.

Yeah, _that_ was no genjutsu.

"So you think you can do better?" the voice asked mockingly. "I'll give you another chance. Let's see what you'll make of it."

A flash of movement off to his peripheral right. Shisui lunged, faster than humanly possible but still – too – slow. His body jerked into immobility in midair, and plummeted to the ground again. Even strengthened with chakra, his bones gave a sickening crack.

"Was that all? I feel let down. Surely you can do better than that."

He was being _toyed_ with, like a mouse that couldn't even see the cat's paw coming down until its spine had already been crushed. "Fucking coward," he hissed. "Show yourself. I'll take your head off."

Eyes wide open, nerves singing, Sharingan burning through his chakra reserve like a bushfire, but still he couldn't see _anyone _around. Either his enemy was invisible, or he was blind. Whatever that presence out there might be, he was at its complete mercy. It wouldn't even need a weapon. Just one kick, one blow to the throat, one _something_ and he'd be…

_No._

The skin of Shisui's knuckles split open as he slammed his fist into the ground. _Push_. He had to push for it. It had to be there, that strand of consciousness. He just had to look harder. He had to find it, and grab hold of it, because in this fight, it didn't matter if you were strong enough or fast enough or clever enough. Finding that elusive wisp was all it'd take to turn this battle around.

_Contact. _

And once again, he was floating in the sweet cool of that deep, black water. He let it wash over him for a moment, a cool balm over his injuries, and then began to seek out his opponent. There would be no mercy shown today. Once he had wrapped his fist around that mind—and it wouldn't take long, with no other minds around to distract him—he would _crush_ it to bits.

Below him. A very faint presence. _Weak_.

Shisui smiled to himself, and started to follow the wavering trace. _Can't get away from me now. Let's see who needs to do better, you bastard._

He sank deeper and deeper, sensing the signal grow as he approached. It was like deep-diving for pearls, and the pearl wouldn't know what hit it.

Closer and closer…

The signal growing stronger, practically jumping out at him now…

Almost there…

The realization slammed into Shisui's chest like a stone fist, nearly knocking the breath out of him. He floundered in the water, trying to halt his descent, but there was nothing to hold on to. His legs kicked back and forth uselessly. Oh God_. Oh God_. What he had taken for a weak, crushable thing was actually a _behemoth_, a monster lurking in the shadowy depth of these treacherous waters, and he had to get away, get as far away as possible before it noticed his presence. Because when it did…

When it did, the sharp, foul claws would reach for his tiny, insignificant essence, and tear it to shreds.

Shisui's heart quivered and recoiled. He had made a gargantuan mistake. He was no Susano-o, he had not been called upon to slay the serpent in the deep. He was just a boy, a weak, pathetic little boy who couldn't even protect those he loved, how could he possibly triumph here? He was the inferior one, he had to escape before his mind was cut into quadrants, and then he was swimming frantically, rising through the darkness, but instead of breaking through the surface of the murky water, emerging to sunlight and open air, he was caught, he was being dragged down, down, down into the deep…

He made the mistake of opening his mouth in a silent scream, which drove all the oxygen out of his lungs.

The mind within him shrank in on itself, screaming.

(_Why?)_

He was face down on the ground, but he was still in the water, sinking fast, got to fight it. He was still in the water, but he was on the ground. Why was he still in the water if he was on the ground? How could he be on the ground if he was still in the water? How? Why? How? Why?

(_Why am I so weak?)_

He couldn't move. There was no way out. He was trapped, like a cornered rat. Oh God, I don't want to die, please, no, I don't want t—

(_If I were stronger, I could have gotten out.)_

The death of the mind was analogous with the death of the body. The death of the mind was analogous with the death of the body. The death of the mind, the death of the mind, the death of the mind…

(_If I were stronger, I could have protected them.)_

Not enough. He was so weak, still so weak.

Not enough.

(_If I were, were, were, were, were…)_

"Not enough," Shisui rasped, in a voice he barely recognized as his own. His fingers clawed into the hard ground, skin shredding, slippery with blood and grit as his nails broke off one – by – one.

"I need… I need _more_."

He coughed, and pain stabbed into his chest. A red, bubbling froth welled up over his lips, blending into the red mist in his vision, then fading, to purple, then black. He could feel his consciousness cracking under that immense pressure, threatening to shatter into a million bloodied shards. Soon, his mind would be crushed, and he would be lost. His skin was sloughing off, flaking off like a chrysalis, making way for something new to emerge, something alien and grotesque—inhuman.

_(More. More. More. More, more, more, more, more…)_

"Power."

It was over.

He was not in the water. He was on the ground, gasping for breath, and it was over. All was still. There was a pressure in his head, like when you had to sneeze but couldn't, and it just built and built and built.

"You want more power," said the faceless voice. Shisui could barely make out the words through the ringing in his ears. "That's what you're thinking, isn't it?"

"I understand how you feel. You lived like a blind man for most of your life, complacent in your own meager ability, thinking you were invincible just because you knew a few cheap tricks. Then one day, you opened your eyes and realized that the world was much bigger than you."

His opponent was standing over him once more, and this time, he didn't try to fight. This time, he stayed down and kept his head low in total surrender, prone and flightless.

"That's why you decided to become what you are. You trained until you puked blood, you went further than any limits you'd ever set for yourself. You finally learned to separate the wheat from the chaff, to see what's truly important—and for that, you only had to barter a piece of your humanity. You made yourself something above that, and in doing so, you set yourself apart from the rest of them."

A long pause, and then the voice continued, "I admire that. And I understand."

"What?" he heard himself mumble, his voice thick with blood. Could be internal bleeding. Wonderful.

"I know that you feel it too. Don't you?"

"Feel what?"

"The hunger."

What the hell was going on? What was being demanded of him?

"But what you _can_ do is not as important as what you _choose_ to do. All the power in the world won't save the blind. Water is measured by thirst, glory by want. Do you know what it is that you want, boy?"

_Yes, _his battered mind screamed._ Yes, yes, yes, yes, yes..._

He had one wish, only one wish, a wish he would weigh the entire world against, and he couldn't die until he had let it free.

"Please… Please tell me… tell me where he is."

The kick came out of nowhere, smashing into the side of his head. The tenuous breath rammed out of him. His neck flopped—why was it doing that, was it broken, had the muscles been turned to jelly?

He blacked out momentarily.

No more than a second or two, because he could still hear that high, cold voice, pronouncing his sentence as it slowly faded away.

"Disappointing…"

"But I suppose you've earned it."

-x-

There were cicadas in the afterlife. Interesting.

Blackness. No movement. Blood seeping from his nose. A mossy, wallowing smell, like… moss?

As if overcoming tremendous resistance, his heart flipped over—in slow, uncertain beats—and kicked back in. The sound of it reverberated like thunder in his ears. _Da-dunk. Da-dunk_. Shisui rolled himself onto his back, gave a sharp, loud exhale of breath, and shuddered back to life. His mouth gaped open, dragging down air in large, broken gulps. Like resuscitation. Like birth.

He was alive, and his brain was already triaging the situation. He was a) still in the forest and b) lying in a way that made sharp twigs cut into the skin of his neck. Okay. He could work with that.

Shisui struggled to sit. Tried to move his left shoulder as subtly as possible. Not subtly enough, because it made a thread of pain shoot up the length of his neck, but it was acceptable for now. Serviceable. His hands were a total mess, of course, all the old scars burst open across the thatched palms and a bunch of new ones waiting to form, but flesh wounds hadn't been worth fretting over since he'd been _six_.

Examined his wrist—and if he'd thought his shoulder hurt, this was a whole other world of pain. Probably a distal radius fracture, which meant a month in a splint at the very least. He reached into his weapon pouch and groped around for the packet of emergency pain-killers. Dry-swallowed the whole thing, and pretended it was just the taste that made him wince.

It'd take something a hell of a lot stronger to dull the hammering in his head—but frankly, he was damn lucky to still _have_ a head at all. He had feelings in his legs. Whatever the hell this was, he would survive.

A muscle twitched suddenly in Shisui's cheek, breaking open a cut that had had enough time to start healing. He—no, it wasn't a mistake. He'd felt it. That chakra signature. Out there beyond the trees.

-x-

Shisui tore through the field of reeds, using no more stealth than what had become natural to him. Being noticed _was_ the point. He ran on foot, fearing that if he took a Shunshin step his heart would rupture in his chest. He barely had the chakra to feed the Sharingan anymore, but pushed for it anyway, ignoring the pain that splintered out from behind his eyes. He had to watch out for movements—_any_ movements at all. The trail was so faint and he was so exhausted, it would be so easy to miss…

_There_.

He shifted course, doglegged forty-five degrees to his right without slowing his pace, and hoped to God that he wasn't hallucinating from the adrenaline rush to his brain. His feet skidded to a halt as he reached a clearing in the reeds, and…

And standing in the middle of it, awash in cool moonlight, was Itachi, the point of Shisui's compass, looking as though the Earth had just reopened and spat him back out again.

The heart inside Shisui knitted itself together so quickly that it felt exactly like it was breaking all over again. He reeled toward Itachi, to hug him or hit him or kiss him or _something_, anything at all to prove that he was there and real and not a figment of Shisui's fevered imagination. His mouth was already forming the shape of a word—a name, a curse, a confession—when Itachi turned around, and saw him.

Later, Shisui would think that, had he not had the shit beat out of him in the forest earlier, he would have been quick enough to move out of the way. Had his mind not been too busy sending off prayers of gratitude to God and Kami and Buddha and a host of other deities whose names he couldn't pronounce, he wouldn't have _needed _to move out of the way, because he would have already _noticed_.

He would have already noticed that Itachi was wearing his ANBU mask, that his sword was unsheathed and clutched in his hand. That the stalks of reed around him had been cleared in a wide swath, as though somebody had spent a good amount of time systematically cutting them down in cold, methodical rage.

The kind of anger that could, say, propel a person to charge at their perplexed best friend and crash into him with savage force, sending the both of them flying backward, and for the nth time that day, Shisui found himself on the ground, with the fun new addition of Itachi straddling him. Nice.

Shisui had at least fifteen pounds on Itachi, who was comparatively slight and frankly built like an anorexic girl, but the moment he landed on his back, he knew he had lost the advantage. With Itachi's knees digging into the side of his ribs, he could neither reach his weapon pouch nor move his hands to form a seal, and with the slick katana blade pressed against his throat, his chances of physically disarming Itachi and freeing himself were significantly reduced.

It wasn't that he'd forgotten what Itachi could do. It was just that, outside of sparring sessions, Shisui had never expected that strength to be used against him.

He'd do well not to make that mistake again.

"Itachi," Shisui said slowly, "would you mind getting that sword away from my neck?"

Itachi seemed not to hear him. The moon shone clear over his shoulders, the strong wind blowing clouds like skeins of dirty cotton across the sky. The hand not gripped around the sword's handle was on Shisui, forcing his shoulder to the ground. He could hear his bones creak as a dull pain crept across his body—and now he was officially pissed. Now he had had enough. He had put up with way too much tonight, and he wasn't here to play games. If it were anybody else, he would have already had the person writhing on the ground clutching their head, or gasping from a sharp blade driven up between two ribs.

If it were anybody else…

_Do it._

Maybe it was just the painkillers making his head all fuzzy, but that thought sure didn't seem to have come from him.

_Do it. You know you want to, you know you should. _

_Do it, and he'll never be out of your sight again. He'll always be safe, and he'll do whatever you want. Your every wish. It's the right thing to do._

_He'll be yours._

_That's what you want, isn't it?_

_Isn't it?_

Something wet and hot hit his cheek. Shisui blinked, and his mind was clear again.

"Shisui," Itachi whispered. "You came for me."

With a slow blink, Shisui deactivated his Sharingan. He stared unwaveringly into the dark slits presumably shielding Itachi's eyes, willing their gaze to lock.

"Of course I came for you. I'll always come for you."

Itachi's entire body convulsed in a heavy, spasmodic shudder. He slid bonelessly off of Shisui, and threw his sword aside. In a frantic movement, he ripped off his mask, bent double, and vomited green bile on the dry dirt.

Shisui pulled himself up, minding his various injuries. He shook the numbness out of his body, and carefully edged toward Itachi, who was still sailing the Good Ship Puking to My Death, making horrible retching sounds as his shoulders seized. For no reason, he picked up the mask Itachi had discarded. The inside of it felt wet against his fingers, the lacquered surface slick with water—and so was Itachi's face when the moonlight caught his skin, skating off his sweat-daubed forehead.

"Hey," Shisui said softly. "Hey, look at me."

He reached out and cupped Itachi's chin, tilting his face up. His skin was stark white, and there were dark areas under his opaque, unfocused eyes, swollen like bruises. Shisui unhooked Itachi's breastplate and dropped it to the ground, next to the katana and the mask—all the deadly toys that they had accumulated in their attempts to outrun each other to adulthood, now as good as junks. All the accoutrements gone, and then there was just his best friend, unshackled and whole, returned to Shisui by the fates.

All the darkness that had been injected into him dissolved into nothing, poison sucked out of a wound. He was trapped in a gravitational field—caught in Itachi's orbit, inexorably drawn to him regardless of the distance in between.

Feeling positively unhinged, Shisui leaned forward and carefully pressed their foreheads together. Itachi's breath felt warm on his cheeks. He was grateful that he'd left his hitai-ate at home today, because in terms of comfort skin beat metal, hands down.

"We need to get you cleaned up," he muttered. "I think the river is just down that way. Let's…"

He changed his mind mid-sentence. Given the way Itachi's body was wilted like a broken lily-stem, that course of action probably wouldn't work out so hot.

"Put your arms around my neck," he said quietly. "Go on, just do it."

Itachi complied without a word. He stopped shaking, but did not stop holding on.

"Ready? Up we go."

Itachi stumbled a little when Shisui scooped him up to his feet. Shisui caught him, and then they were sagged against each other, holding fast. His face ended up buried in Itachi's right shoulder, which should have been highly awkward but wasn't, just their bodies slotting together like old puzzle pieces. Edges worn to fit. It was kind of amazing, Shisui reflected, that his face hadn't formed a permanent dent in the shape of Itachi's shoulder blade by now, given the sheer ridiculous number of times he had awoken from a lazy cat nap to find his head pillowed there: during soporific lectures, on interminably boring stakeouts—once, in the sultry hollow beneath a tree, with a north country storm roaring across the sky.

"Geez," Shisui said, "who'd have imagined our first hug would be like this, huh?"

It must be a sign that he still understood his target audience, because his words elicited from Itachi a wry laugh—a soft, broken, slightly hysterical sound muffled into the juncture where Shisui's neck met his shoulder. The choked tremor sent a trill of shivers rippling down the length of his spine. He thought he could feel Itachi's heartbeat, faint and uneven against his chest.

It made something inside Shisui crack open and overflow, warm and profuse, like all of the scars inside him had been ripped clean open. He tightened the circle of his arms, crushed Itachi's smaller body against his. He should have done this forever ago. He should have done this the moment he'd laid eyes on Itachi. He should never have let go.

"Welcome back, kiddo," Shisui whispered, voice going a little throbby. He couldn't help himself from pressing his nose briefly into the soft crook of Itachi's neck, inhaling the warm, familiar scent of his tired skin—tipping his grateful smile down onto that graceful curvature like an imprint.

Then he bent his knees, and used the leverage to hoist Itachi's body up halfway over his uninjured shoulder, like a laborer heaving a sack of grains. For a moment, he was worried that his body wouldn't be able to handle the single-shoulder carry, but it was a nonissue. Itachi felt almost weightless in his arms—and fittingly so, because Itachi was not a burden, and would never be, regardless of how much baggage he brought into Shisui's life.

Gathering himself carefully, Shisui steadied his steps, and began to follow the distant sound of water.

-x-

The river opened up behind the last curtain of reeds, dyed in silvery moonlight. The light almost hurt Shisui's eyes, which still hadn't recovered from Sharingan-abuse. The water was sequined with it, dripping with the liquefaction of colors that summer nights produced. Shisui set Itachi down on the lip of sand that kissed the river edge, and gently peeled off his gloves, then the sweat-soaked turtleneck, which he balled up to dip in the river. The water felt cool and soothing on his tattered hands.

He worked quickly and efficiently, wiping Itachi down from head to torso, moving the wet cloth lightly over his back—which, as Shisui had surmised, was also covered in bruises, now faded green and yellow. Shisui stared at them for a moment, and then pulled off the v-neck he was wearing over his undershirt and tossed it into Itachi's lap. When Itachi just stared at it, fingering the dark material thoughtfully, Shisui grabbed the shirt from him, dragged it over his head and manhandled his unresponsive limbs into the armholes, readjusting the wide collar that threatened to slip over the slope of his shoulders.

"This feels weirdly familiar," he muttered to himself, wiping Itachi's cheek in slow circles with the wadded up shirt.

Itachi's lips tilted softly upward. _I kissed him there_, Shisui thought, his face heating slightly at the memory of lingering warmth. It felt like something from a whole other lifetime.

"You've gotten better at this," Itachi said. Shisui knew he was thinking of that first day, when they had run to the river after the scuffle with Douchey Classmate 1, 2, and 3. God, had he really used to think that busted lips _hurt?_

"Practice really does make perfect," he said blandly. "You didn't even help. You just sat there. And then the raid siren went off, and you _ran_. Didn't even let me introduce myself."

"Emergency response protocols stated that children were to report to a parent or guardian in the event of a raid," Itachi said. "I found you again the next day."

"Yeah, I remember. You already knew who I was by then."

"I asked."

Had he now? That must have been an interesting conversation. Shisui wondered how Fugaku might have reacted to his son's question. Perhaps the seed of defiance had already been planted in him even at the tender, milk-toothy age of four—and really, that surprised him not at all.

Done with his nursing duties, Shisui tossed aside the wet shirt and settled down next to Itachi on the bank. Silence fell around them, thick and heavy. There were a million questions he wanted to ask, but looking at Itachi's tired face, the listless slump of his shoulders, Shisui found he couldn't bring himself to voice them. _Later_, he told himself. _I'll have time to ask later_. There would be time.

What could he say instead?

_Guess what? Kagura-san asked me out, and I turned her down._

_So we'll be working together again soon. Got any cool mission in mind?_

_I fought a demon or something today. Almost lost my life. Don't suppose you care._

He said, "You want to hear something freaky? I used mind control on Danzou."

Any other person would have at least raised an alarmed eyebrow, but Itachi barely even looked up.

"Well, he sort of asked for it—no, like, _literally_," Shisui explained. "But here's the thing. When I was in his mind, when I had control over him—I really wanted to kill him, Itachi."

He stopped and stared at his hands, red and blistered. "I came so close to doing it. I don't know what came over me, and I don't even really know what stopped me in the end, but for a moment there, I just wanted to snap the bastard's neck. Or you know, make him snap his own neck. Or something."

His voice consolidated in his throat. "I tried to murder one of the village's leaders." _And I'd do it again in a heartbeat._

_But that's not even the worst thing. That's not even skirting the tip of the Bad Things iceberg. The worst thing is that I went to the clan. I sold you down the river, you and everybody else in this village—but mostly you. You probably won't forgive me, will probably hate me for it, but I don't think I care, because at least that means you'll still be around to do it._

_You, you, you._

"Shisui," Itachi said. "Would you ever use that technique on me?"

"Very funny, you jerk," Shisui muttered, crabby. "Don't think I'm not tempted to. Maybe then you'll keep your ass out of trouble, huh? Free will's overrated anyway."

Itachi was unfazed. "So you're saying that you would," he said matter-of-factly, and Shisui was once again filled with the urge to take him by his stupid bony shoulders and shake, shake, shake.

"_Of course_ I wouldn't use it on you," he snapped. "Damn it, what is _wrong_ with you?" When he had time, he would try to make a comprehensive list. "Probably wouldn't even work anyway. You're so pigheaded you'd probably just do whatever you want even if you _were_ under mind control."

Itachi said nothing in return. Again, they sat in uncommuning silence, each alone with his thoughts.

If he were totally honest with himself, Shisui had to admit that he was afraid. He wasn't sure if he would have enough strength to drag Itachi away from these dark forces, all the amassing demons and ghosts that flocked around him, raking into his flesh with their foul claws and leaving imprints in the shape of flowering bruises. He wasn't sure he was up to the task, and that slithering doubt scared him shitless, because for perhaps the first time ever, this felt like a fight he wasn't going to win.

Once more, Shisui could see himself standing on the far side of a desolate no-man's-land, wreathed with smoke, the smell of rot and cordite. Itachi was on the other side, and when he broke into a run, so did Shisui, leaping over bodies and fallen weapons to clear the distance. At midway, their little, not-yet-calloused hands found each other, and together, they sank into the earth.

"One day," Itachi said abruptly, "perhaps not far from now, I will ask you to do something for me."

Shisui stared at him in question, but Itachi didn't seem to notice. His eyes fluttered shut as he sucked a short, ragged breath in through his nose, quietly let it out again.

"Promise me that, when that day comes, you will do exactly as I ask."

"Do what?" Shisui said. "What the hell are you talking about?"

Itachi shook his head. "I can't tell you," he said. "But I need you to promise you will do it."

"But…"

Itachi's eyes snapped open then, dark and endless in the ghostly light reflecting off the water. "Shisui," he said gravely. "Have I ever asked you for anything before?"

Shisui opened his mouth to speak, but closed it with an audible click. He knew Itachi was right. He had never asked anything of Shisui for as long as they'd known each other, and even though Shisui likely owed him favors enough for this and future lifetimes, he had never come to collect on those either.

But why couldn't he shake the feeling that—given the way the question had been phrased—Itachi was actually asking him for some kind of _permission_ rather than making a request?

"You're right," he said. "I do owe you." The words were practically tripping out of his mouth now, losing foothold over the tip of his tongue. "But, look. I can't—I can't just agree to something I don't know anything about. I mean, how do I even know if this is something I can do, you know? If I promise to do something that turns out I'm not capable of doing, it would be the same as lying to you."

At this, Itachi gave him a look of such pronounced weariness that Shisui felt something hard back up in his throat. His head was filled with noise, an angry voice that sounded suspiciously like his dad, ordering Shisui to give it up and just make the damn promise already, he'd been taught better than that, didn't he see what an asshole he was being?

With inhuman resolve, he forced that voice back into the dark of his mind, and slammed the door on it. He held his gaze, waiting for an answer.

"It is," Itachi said at last, "a very difficult task." His voice was thick, almost slurring around the words. The density of it devastated the still, still air.

"Well, no shit if you're being such a spook about it," Shisui said, frustration whetting his tone. "Look, I don't care how hard it is, just tell me outright if this—this task you're going to ask me to do—is it something that I can do?"

There was a long silence, punctuated only by the ceaseless trilling of the cicadas. Shisui waited, holding his breath, and presently…

"Yes."

"Then alright!" Shisui said, a little too emphatically, wild about the edges. "I promise that if it's something within my power to accomplish, I will make sure to do whatever you ask. I swear. On my mother's _and_ my father's graves."

Itachi turned away from him. "You don't have to do that," he said. "I just wanted to hear you promise."

"Well, there you go," Shisui insisted. He wished Itachi would look at him, but then didn't, because he wasn't certain he would like what he might see. "So everything's okay?"

In response, Itachi gave a faint snort—mostly an outward rush of air. Ineffably bitter. "Yes," he said, almost too softly to be heard. "If you promise, then everything will be okay." A smile ghosted over his lips, faint and unbearably remote, a fleeting trace of moonlight. "Thank you."

Drowning in Shisui's sloppy, overlarge shirt, Itachi seemed so strange and solemn with that intense light spilling all around him. A silver negative that lived in a space of his own absorption, somewhere Shisui couldn't touch. The ripple of the water made moving shadows on his white throat. Though nothing about him had notably changed, he nevertheless seemed like a whole different person from the boy Shisui had known all his life. His eyes were vivid and sharp, like dots of ink. The gods of old paintings had eyes like those, eyes that saw only visions of another realm.

Once, Shisui had believed that theirs was a changeless friendship, which would persist even if they were old or maimed or dead. The realization that maybe he had been wrong hobbled him, cutting off his every tack of thought. Snapping ropes, rending sails, striking down his mast. His heart heavy with dread. Things had changed, were changing still, and even though he had gotten Itachi back, Shisui knew they would never be able to go back to the life they'd had before.

But the tenderness unfurling within his chest was the same, and so was the memory of Itachi's heartbeat, a faint, fluttering, possibly-imagined tremor against Shisui's breastbone. And if these things were the same then everything else _had_ to be the same—the same as they had always been since Shisui had at the age of six wiped blood from his lips and decided that, really, taciturn four-year-olds with prematurely-lined eyes weren't so bad. Everything was the same, even if it didn't feel that way, because that was how the story had been written, right? In his bone, in his flesh, in the arteries and chambers of his heart—an internal map—and as long as it was there, he could never stray.

It was still summer, but late night brought the chill, and Shisui shivered in his flimsy shirt, felt goosebumps mushrooming across his skin. Behind them, the stalks of reed rustled eerily in the soughing wind. His ears were still ricocheting with the shrill song of the cicadas—did they ever fucking stop?

He'd better go take care of that wrist if he planned on ever using it again.

"Let's get out of here," Shisui said, rising to his feet and brushing his clothes of imaginary dirt. He looked down at Itachi, and added uncertainly, "You want to stay over again?"

Itachi met his gaze blankly. For reasons unknown, Shisui began to feel flustered.

"I mean, you definitely have to go home and let them know you're alright," he prevaricated. "But it's pretty late, and if your mother or Sasuke sees you like this, they'll lose their shit."

Itachi's brows furrowed. "I'm not injured. My family has seen me in direr states than this."

Shisui frowned back at him. "Yeah, and so have _I_, but that's not the point, is it?" He stuffed his hands into his pockets, and went on awkwardly, "So you following me or what?"

Itachi's eyes widened. "What did you say?"

"I asked," Shisui said, "if you're going to follow me."

The sand at Itachi's feet scattered as he scrambled forward. "Yes," he said, in a choking rush, like the word might be snatched away if he didn't give it substance fast enough. "Yes, Uchiha Shisui, I will follow you."

Shisui's mouth fell open, but before he could say anything, Itachi had dipped his head, stress-limp hair falling to shield his face. His shoulders shook in a faint, low-grade tremor. Shisui thought he might be laughing soundlessly to himself, but it was hard to tell for sure. _He_ certainly couldn't find any humor in this situation, and that made a cold breath of fear shiver through him.

Another minute passed. When Itachi looked up again, his face had smoothed back into impassivity—yet when he opened his mouth to speak, it was to utter a statement even more asinine than the last:

"Will you wait for me?"

Shisui wanted to yell, "I'm waiting _right now_," but realized suddenly this wasn't the question he was being asked. He wasn't sure _what_ that question was, but he had a feeling that it wasn't his place to know.

So instead, he nodded and said, "Yeah, I'll wait. I will wait for you."

The weight of two blind promises sank down into his bones, filling the fleshy linings of his heart with lead, but it seemed to lift a heavy burden from Itachi, because he slid fluidly to his feet, with all the grace Shisui had come to know so well. Tossed his hair back, shook out his weary limbs, and said, "Alright then." Precise as a paper-cut, every wrinkle of disturbance ironed flat. "Let's go home."

Shisui nodded silently. He began walking up the bank, but made terrible progress because he couldn't seem to stop glancing over his shoulder every couple of seconds just to make sure that Itachi was still there, that he hadn't vanished, been swallowed up by the ground again while Shisui hadn't been looking. After a few minutes of this, Itachi finally noticed his anxiety. He quickened his pace, until they were nearly abreast, and silently took Shisui's wrist in his hand. Leading, but at the same time allowing himself to be led. This was it, the swaying give-and-take rhythm that had always traced the veins of their friendship, giving life to its pulse. It made something flare up within Shisui again, a kind of solemn, blossoming warmth that made him feel for the first time that maybe, just maybe, he could do this.

In his heart of heart, he knew that this was far from over. Dark days lay ahead of them, and tomorrow morning there would be things to worry about—Danzou, his deal with Fugaku, the malevolent entity in the forest. But for now, with the light curl of thin fingers around his wrist holding down his place in the universe, steady as the earth, all-enveloping as the sky, all of that ceased to matter. He was Uchiha Shisui, Shisui the Mirage, Scourge of the Underworld, and as long as he still had something to fight for, not even an army from hell could make him stand down.

So let them come, Shisui thought, squaring his shoulders as they walked together into the unwavering darkness ahead.

Let them take their best shot.

-x-

_I felt soft fingers at my throat  
It seemed someone was strangling me_

_The lips were hard as they were sweet  
It seemed someone was kissing me_

_My vital bones about to crack  
I gaped into another's eyes_

_I saw it was a face I knew  
A face as sweet as it was grim_

_It did not smile it did not weep  
Its eyes were wide and white its skin_

_I did not smile I did not weep  
I raised my hand touched its cheek_

_...  
_

(Harold Pinter, "Ghost")

* * *

**A/N:** And that is how it ends. With them walking home together, holding hands in the pale moonlight. Yup. If you wish to imagine that after this they're going to take Sasuke and run away to farm tomatoes by moonlight and chant sutra to goats for the rest of their lives, you are _highly encouraged_ to do so.

Actually, for all the clichés and schmaltzy moments, I'm pleasantly surprised by how _gen_ this story turned out. Yes, that is gen by my standards, okay? Thank you all _so much_ for reading. If you've stuck around this long – and what brave souls you must be – would you mind letting me know what you think? I know this fic raised more questions than it actually answered, so I will be around to answer any queries you may have. And please, if you have to throw rocks, be gentle :(

Oh, the "presence" in the forest that Shisui fought? It's supposed to be Madara. Was that too vague? :|


End file.
